Sitting Shiva

In the past few months I've had two of my besties approach me and ask about how they can comfort someone who is grieving, what can they say, and what should they say.  It's a good question and one that deserves a thoughtful response.

Other people's grief makes us uncomfortable.  And in that insecurity we utter platitudes, quote phrases that mean nothing, we behave in ways that don't comfort the other person but instead place them in the position of having to ease us. Other people's grief certainly doesn't bring out the best in us...until we have experienced a deep enough grief ourselves. From that moment on we respond to other's grief differently.

My answer to my friends and to anyone who asks me (and people do from time to time), is simply this: Sit Shiva.  This usually brings a confused tone to the person's voice or a scratch on the head. Whatever does THAT mean? So before I talk about sitting Shiva let me give the briefest introduction to it. Shiva is a common practice among the Jewish people when someone has passed on.  It is the seven days following the person's death, including the day of the funeral. When someone sits Shiva with the person who is experiencing grief the role is simply this, sit with them in their grief and allow them to feel it and work through it. That's it.  It isn't sitting there saying things like, "Well heaven just gained another angel," or "It was his time to go," etc.  It isn't sitting there "one-upping" their grief with stories of your own. It isn't chattering non-stop about nonsense to distract them or yourself from the uncomfortable emotions of loss. It is letting them lead when they want to speak, eat, stand, sit, and sleep.  It is letting them lead when they feel the need to cry, yell, laugh and question.

And perhaps we need to also briefly define grief.  Grief is the emotion that expresses loss. Not only loss of life but loss on all levels of life.  Loss of physical life, loss of a relationship (marriage, friendship, child), loss of a dream, you get the idea. So while the Jewish people sit Shiva for loss of physical life what I am talking about is sitting Shiva for all kinds of loss that prompts grief in us. I am broadening the practice to include the varied griefs we are sure to encounter in life.

We are given an excellent example of how not to sit Shiva in the book of Job found in the Bible.  Job had lost everything but his wife and she was off in her own corner cursing God. So Job found himself sitting on top of dirt, tearing his clothes, and scraping his skin with broken pieces of pottery. People, this is grief and it isn't pretty.  I can't think of a time when grief is pretty. Job has three friends show up to sit Shiva with him. But once Shiva is officially done things go bad. Job speaks.  He didn't utter a word for seven days but then he speaks.  And once he's done his friends undo the Shiva they just sat with him.  The lesson here is to maintain the Shiva you sat and not undo it with your mouth or actions once the initial period of grief has eased.  To sit Shiva also means we continue to allow space and grace for the process of grief.  We don't take the other person's choice to open up as permission to unleash any doubts, anger, etc we might be feeling as well, especially when those things would be painful and condemning to the person grieving.  

When we experience loss we are open to shame, fear, insecurity, and doubt depending on the kind of loss we are walking through. To sit Shiva with someone means that we take up the battle against those things on behalf of the grieving person.  We pray against those things taking root, we pray for an empowering for that person to battle any of those.  We do this battle on their behalf silently, unless or until an occasion arises in which it becomes appropriate to include them. 

The very best comfort we can give is to sit Shiva completely available.  When we are concerned with saying something specific, questioning circumstances, talking to distract from the discomfort of grief, or any number of other ridiculous things we resort to when grief is evident then we are not available.  We might be physically present but we are emotionally absent.  To be a true comfort is to be totally available, totally set aside for the sake of the person in grief. Be available to listen and to listen without trying to "fix" the grief spiritually.  Do not try to remind them of God, plenty of other people will, with good but misguided intentions, be doing that. Be the person in their life who gives permission to feel angry, sad, doubtful of God, fearful and whatever else may rise to the surface during the grief process.  Be the person that gives them space and time to process it all.  Don't be the person who throws in the Christianese, the "textbook" scriptures (i.e. God has a plan for your life, Jeremiah 29:11).  Those things only serve to drive the pain deeper in the end. I have discovered that we often employ the Christianese and the "textbook" scriptures when the person's pain and grief makes us uncomfortable about faith and the true heart of God. But when we resort to those things for those reasons it ends up doing more damage than good.  In our culture we are trained to speak, to try and use words that heal and provide answers to any question, but in reality the greatest comfort can come, and does come, from silence and companionship and words being used thoughtfully and in the right time with the right motive. Let us not utter words that are birthed out of a discomfort toward God but out of sincerity.  This goes against what we've been taught all our lives but it is better for the grief-filled person and for the one who sits alongside of them. Yes, it is more uncomfortable because we may have our own doubts about God and what has happened and the why's but God is in the midst of all of that - he is there and you will know it as you don't try and push grief away but you embrace it and let it work its way through.  

It is a profound thing to sit Shiva with a hurting person.  A hurt person needs to be known and sitting Shiva is one of the best ways I have experienced to let someone know they are not alone and they are seen. In my own life I am trying to remember the practice of sitting Shiva with hurt people and how, when the time comes and I am hurting, I want others to respond to my pain. 

For more information on the Judaism practice of sitting Shiva click here and here.