Wanneer woorde rou verder verniel...

Jacob Steinhardt het dikwels vir Joh uitgebeeld: Hier teken hy vir Job, in rou, roepende om te kan verstaan.

 

Stanley Hauerwas (sien https://cct.biola.edu/presence-silence-lessons-grief-suffering/) skryf oor rou:

... Were there words, there’s this Thomas Merton reference, in a letter to someone where he just points out, “Sometimes, there just are no words for suffering, “or grief.” But then, if that’s the case, what is Lamente? And what is it to Lamente and what is, how did you, how did you deal with that?

Well, I wrote a book some years ago, called “Naming the Silences”, and [mumbles] thought that the title, after its first publication was too obscure, so they renamed it “God, Medicine, and the Problem of Suffering”, but it’s “Naming the Silences”. Silences drip off the edges of words I think that often times, what we were too noisy around people who are suffering, by trying to make things okay, that what they absolutely need is presence. They need us to be there. Job, friends, have such a bad wrap, generally–

But originally, they saw Job from afar and they went and sat silently with him for days. I think that is a sign of goodness.

Evan: It’s when they start talking that they–

It’s when they start talking when thing go bad. So there is a sense that to be with the suffering is first and foremost to be, to be with them, just to be present. Because there’s, I mean, you think about how often times we mislead people when for example, when you’ve gone into a home where a young person has died, and you try to provide comfort, and you come up with locutions like, “I guess they’ve gone to a better place.”

That’s just terrible. First of all, heaven is not a place, I mean, God is not a place, but it’s to try to say something, when what you ought to say is, “You and the person you love will be in my prayers.” And then, you don’t need to say more than that.

Evan (die journals wat die onderhoud voer):  Yeah. Have you been comforted by particular words, that is to say, is there wisdom for the sufferer? Can the sufferer follow a path or a way, that can offer them hope, clarity, a way forward to–

Stanley: I’m sure there is, but it’s not just the words, it’s who says them. It’s very important that, that the designated person of a community called the priest or the minister, know what to say. And it’s very important that friends know how to be there, as well as not to say too much.

Om die minste te sê, en die minste te doen. Net daar wees...