I read the post below on Thoughts and Prayers just after I had read Pence's tweet expressing his thoughts and prayers to the victims. Frankly, I am now very tired of that phrase and think it is a shallow throw-away line by Pence. I went back over some of his old tweets and comments. He has expressed thoughts and prayers to:
(all of these on multiple events)
hurricane victims (various times and for various locations)
fire victims (California)
flood victims
military (both deceased and alive)
first responders (including police and firemen separately and together)
shooting victims (multiple schools - Las Vegas - an office....)
the family of Otto Warmbier
the family of Edward Jackson
Amtrak crash victims
victims of the holocaust and Israel in general
On and on
Unless he is spending hours on his knees every night, the thoughts and prayers are fleeting.
It just bugs me at this point.
Yeah, I'm sympathetic with you, alax . . . generally I think this is more gloss than substance. It's like every TV program that has cop in it uses the same "I'm sorry for your loss" every time a cop talks with a person who just had someone they love murdered.
And yet, I gotta relay a story about what happened yesterday and today. The work day yesterday started with an email from a senior attorney at work; she was on her way to the hospital because her brother was in the ICU with viral sepsis, probably a complication from the flu. I told her not to worry we'd take care of the clients in her absence, she oughta just take care of her brother, and her family.
She responded by saying "this viral sepsis stuff is
scary . . . thoughts and prayers would be most appreciated . . .". This was long before the shooting in Florida . . . so that wasn't a prompt.
The thing is, she's Jewish. I've pondered her use of the phrase "thoughts and prayers" a bit for the last 30 hours, and I've wondered whether she tailored that for me because she knows I'm a Christian. Or, maybe, just maybe . . . she sincerely wanted the support of even something as vague and unscientific as "thoughts and prayers". It sure felt like the latter to me at the time.
I had a hard time concentrating on work yesterday, so I went to pick up a ring that we'd had made for MrsSope, and then went home . . . and spent the day getting ready to hand over the Valentines Day mandatory chocolate (specifications: 60% or more cacao) and ring. (This is what passes for Valentines Day romance in Sope House; I HATE the fake holiday.) We spent a normal evening, slept well and got up to go to work this morning . . .
. . . and no reports from the attorney or anyone else about the attorney's brother. Until about 10 am . . . brother had died yesterday. As happens when I hear these things, time stopped for a bit . . .
. . . I looked up the obit on the website of the funeral home. Atlanta has a sizable Jewish population, so the funeral home is focused on funerals for Jews. The obit was what you'd typically see - all the way through how much this guy was a UGA football fan - and there were a lot of brief, sincere consolation messages from friends and family of the brother.
Now, some folks have a hard time with these sorts of condolences. Christians sometimes say things like "oh, he's with Jesus now", or "he's in a better place" . . . as often as not those condolences don't quite hit the spot, as they seem to be more for deflecting having to deal with the very real grief that the widow or widower, or children, of the deceased is feeling than helping with it. (We heard a few comments like that a couple of weeks ago at my aunt's funeral in Tupelo.) I didn't see any of that awkwardness on this obit page . . . in fact I was kinda interested in the condolences messages because they seemed so down to earth . . .
. . . the message that caught my eye was this one: "May your memories of him be blessings for you". My first thought was that this was a very nice sentiment . . . until it dawned on me that memories aren't always necessarily blessings. It could be that some widows or widowers didn't have a pleasant partner . . . or perhaps worse, they weren't a pleasant partner to the deceased. So I've concluded that you've got to know something about the relationship between the two before you can offer that kind of condolence . . .
. . . for better or worse, one of the ways that we live beyond our own span of years is in the memories of those who survive us . . .
. . . so I hear ya, alax, I really do. I get annoyed at the rote, pre-programmed recitation of "acceptable" churchy language. Until it's real. And I really can't determine that for others, when it's real for them when they say that stuff or when it's real when someone hears it . . . whether or not it was sincere when said. So I just don't judge that any more . . . .
