Being Present

Over fifty years ago I read the two books that changed my life. John W. Drakeford wrote The Awesome Power of The Listening Ear, and Taylor Caldwell wrote The Listener.

Drakeford’s book helped me discover that helping people begins in what they say, not what I know or say. The most powerful and healing part of the human body is the ear. The tongue comes in third after hugging arms.

Caldwell’s book showed me how it works. The book is about a fictional character who sets up a room in a downtown building with a sign that simply says, “The Man Who Listens.” Each chapter is the story of a person she called a soul, entering the room which is curtained across the end. They feel the presence of someone behind the curtain but he or she never says a word. As each one talks it becomes evident how much change is taking place within them. One soul I remember came in complaining to the heavens about a terrible wife and marriage. As he ranted and complained his anger began to dissipate and talk became calmer. Finally, he said, “I guess the worse thing I can say is she was dumb enough to marry someone like me.”

It is hard for me to adequately explain the relief and empowerment that came from these two books. From almost the first day of serving as a pastor people started coming to my office seeking advice and counsel. There seems to be an established myth that as soon as someone is “called” to be a pastor they are instantly endowed with wisdom in all things and a complete understanding of life and the Bible. I announced to my home church that I felt such a call when I was sixteen-years-old. The next day my boss in a butcher shop asked me a question about a scripture that he did not understand. When I did not know the answer, he seemed to doubt that I had been “Called.”

So, when the church members started asking all kinds of questions and sharing all kinds of problems it felt like I was drowning. The books helped me realize that it was not what I knew that mattered as much as what I allowed them to say and how I listened. I can’t say that it was easy for me to get comfortable just listening. It felt like I had done nothing unless I had some wisdom to share, and frankly I did not have much of that to share.

Since those early days I have spent untold hours doing what I call “laying ears on folks.”

Since there is rarely a time when we do not know someone in grief or pain, and since most of the help they receive must come from their friends, and a lot of added pain also comes from their friends, maybe we need to stop and take a long look at how we can help instead of hinder.

For the last several years I have used a couple of buckets in my talks. Usually I ask someone to hold one of the buckets and tell them to assume a loved one has just died. I say the bucket represents what you are feeling and ask them as well as the audience to tell what feelings would be in the bucket. The response is overwhelming with such feelings as sadness, fear, anger, guilt, regret and the list could go on. Then I ask what thoughts are going through the mind, followed by what frustrations, then what fears, until is if fully established that the bucket is overflowing.

Then I get the other bucket and say, “This is my bucket, it is full of platitudes, explanations, scriptures, and other ways to think about the loss. I mean well. I want the person to feel better, but their buckets are full and there is no room for my words and they either roll off or sometimes they hurt. With the very best of intentions we can add to the pain.

Then I tell a story. I was speaking to a Compassionate Friends meeting and was asked to speak about guilt and anger in grief. I asked the group what they felt guilty about and one lady’s answer stunned me, she said, “All the way to the hospital my son begged me to turn around he did not want the transplant he was afraid, I did not turn around and he died.” Our conversation went like this,

I asked, “How many times has someone said, ‘You were acting out of love?’”

She said, “Many”

I asked, “Did that help?”

She said, “No.”

Then I went through statements such as, “He would have died anyway without the operation, he is in a better place, he no longer has to suffer, God won’t put any more on us than we can bare.” She said none of these helped and the last one made her angry.

Then I said, “What if I hugged you and said, ‘That must really hurt.’ Would that help?” and she said, “Yes it would.”

Why would that help? because I am acknowledging the pain instead of trying to explain it away and am indicating that I am a safe person to talk with.

I learned two valuable lessons that day.

First lesson: Healing always begins in the other person’s bucket; it never begins in my bucket. I have no words that will make the pain go away, but I can learn how to help empty their bucket by simply listening.

Second lesson: “That must really hurt” is the most comforting thing we can say to a grieving person. That sounds strange but a person in grief is desperate for someone to understand and recognize what they are experiencing. They want someone to get in their bucket with them.

After trying to companion people through all kinds of pain and losses, I have come to the conclusion that there are a few things we need to understand and remember.

THE BEST THING TO DO WITH GRIEF IS GRIEVE.
We should never try to explain it away nor leave any impression that grieving is a sign of weakness. Tears are memories in motion, and they need to flow.

FIRST ACKNOWLEDGE THE PAIN.
That must really hurt is more comforting than, “They are in a better place,” or, “God won’t give us more than we can bare.” That is saying, “This is not a big deal,” and the Bible does not promise that. It says we will not face any temptation we can’t escape but we face more than we can bare almost daily. That is why prayer was given to us.

SAFE EARS ARE THE DUMPING GROUNDS FOR OVERFLOWING BUCKETS OF PAIN.
It is the things folks swallow that make them sick. Talking is the opposite of swallowing.

PEOPLE IN GRIEF NEED THE THREE H’S. THEY NEED US TO HANG AROUND, HUG THEM AND HUSH.
Trust presence, when in doubt go, just being there is powerful. Trust touch, a hug if appropriate but just the touch of a hand on a hand gives comfort. Trust silence. It is not what we say it is what we hear.

One of the most painful things people in grief feel is a sense of abandonment from friends and family. Too often we are not present or do not speak because we do not know what to say. If we acknowledge the pain and listen to their story, we have given them the gift of presence.