...When we have overcome absence with smart phones, winglessness, with airplanes, summer heat with air conditioning – when we have overcome all these and much more besides, then there will abide two things with which we must cope: the evil in our hearts and death.
There are those who vainly think that some technology will even enable us to overcome the former. Everyone knows that there is no technology for overcoming death. Death is left for God's overcoming.
Just as W is not interested in false or easy answers, so he is not interested in false or easy comfort. So do not tell him that the death of his son is not really so bad. Because it is. Death is awful.
If you think your task as comforter is to say that really, all things considered, it's not so bad, you do not sit with me in my grief but place yourself off in the distance away from me. Over there, you are of no help. What I need to hear from you is that you recognize how painful it is. I need to hear from you that you are with me in my desperation. To comfort, you have to come close. Come sit beside me on my mourning bench. The bench is long.
Stanley Hauerwas (adapted)
There are those who vainly think that some technology will even enable us to overcome the former. Everyone knows that there is no technology for overcoming death. Death is left for God's overcoming.
Just as W is not interested in false or easy answers, so he is not interested in false or easy comfort. So do not tell him that the death of his son is not really so bad. Because it is. Death is awful.
If you think your task as comforter is to say that really, all things considered, it's not so bad, you do not sit with me in my grief but place yourself off in the distance away from me. Over there, you are of no help. What I need to hear from you is that you recognize how painful it is. I need to hear from you that you are with me in my desperation. To comfort, you have to come close. Come sit beside me on my mourning bench. The bench is long.
Stanley Hauerwas (adapted)
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