#22 Sittin' here in the dirt with my mouth shut April 2010

Tome 22[1]     Just sittin’ here in the dirt with my mouth shut                April 2010

          What’s the difference between riding a motorcycles at 53 degrees of temperature, at night, in the rain, and 43 degrees on that same dark night, in the rain? A couple Monday nights ago, on a lonely stretch Interstate 94 in Northwestern Wisconsin, I had the opportunity to answer that very question.  Answer: 53 degrees is miserable and 43 degrees is life threatening-you’re just too cold to care.

          Shivering my way to Minneapolis and starting to wallow in my [self-imposed] misery I was brought up short by thinking of real trials folks are enduring that are outlined in some of the previous 21 Tomes.  Really great people, families, are shouldering enormous burdens brought on by some really big, bad problems right now. Financial woes obviously dominate my attentions, our media headlines and the water-cooler conversations but the most profound difficulties have to be the physical and mental/emotional ones that sometimes surround the financial or show up all on their own.  Recently, there seems to be less and less to say to friends and family going through these tribulations.  This verbal inadequacy has almost nothing to do with capability and a lot to do with a deliberate discipline of silence.

Job's Three Friends    Job 2:11-13

 ^11-13 Three of Job's friends heard of all the trouble that had fallen on him. Each traveled from his own country—Eliphaz from Teman, Bildad from Shuhah, Zophar from Naamath—and went together to Job to keep him company and comfort him. When they first caught sight of him, they couldn't believe what they saw—they hardly recognized him! They cried out in lament, ripped their robes, and dumped dirt on their heads as a sign of their grief. Then they sat with him on the ground. Seven days and nights they sat there without saying a word. They could see how rotten he felt, how deeply he was suffering.

These three homeboys all get in trouble later in the story but first let’s give them proper respect for what they did do.

1. They took vacation, PTO, family leave or just went AWOL to be there.
2. They may have lost money, missed business opportunities and traveled at considerable expense.
3. There is no mention of a delay for their convenience. They dropped everything.
4. Job’s sorrow became theirs even if their own financial and family security was not threatened. They dropped down to his level-sunk to his lows.
5. They sat there for seven days. We send a text message to say we are ‘thinking of you’ and think we have ‘come along side’ a friend in need.
6. They shut their mouth for seven days to match the overwhelming grief of Job.

Wow. Aren’t these the kind of friends you want? I do and hope my friends and family can rely on me to be as responsive as these three guys.  Funny, I have never heard a sermon that praised them for what I listed above.  All the preachers and teachers I have heard over the years condemn them.   So, if 1-6 are true then how did it go so wrong that the same book ends with:

Epilogue   Job 42

 ⁷ After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. ⁸ So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has." ⁹ So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the LORD told them; and the LORD accepted Job's prayer

How can this be? These guys were there for Job and in the end God instructs Job to pray and that they make sacrifices for their forgiveness! What in the world happened over the course of forty chapters to end up here?  Well, boys and girls, I don’t want to encourage you to skip reading the book but the answer may be simple. They opened their mouth.

Life is teaching me that being there with a needy friend and meeting their needs is a great deal more important than anything I might spew from my mouth. More to the point, the words I may manufacture in that moment may do a great deal more harm than good unless I am 100% confident the BOSS wants me to say them.

So why do we say those stupid clichés at funerals and around hospital beds? Why do we have to offer our advice to someone walking through the ‘valley of the shadow’?

1.     We lose patience. Our internal timer prods us to do something no matter how futile.

2.     We want to be in control in situations that are out of control.

3.     Pride. “Never mind, God, I got this one.”

4.     We want to offer our perspective. Perhaps whatever insight we have is for us alone.  We try to make it about us.

5.     We do not want to admit, “I don’t know”. Paul has some wisdom for this in 1 Corinthians 13

¹⁰But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.   ¹¹When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.   ¹²For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.  ¹³And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity

Perhaps the most powerful demonstration of real compassion is to go, sit down in the dirt, shut up and wait for God to be God.

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[1] Tome-tome –noun 1.a book, esp. a very heavy, large, or learned book. 2. a volume forming a part of a larger work. Use tome in a Sentence

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Origin:
1510–20; < F < L tomus  < Gk tómos  slice, piece, roll of paper, book, akin to témnein  to cut