Here

My son Aaron and I saw the Tom Hanks movie “Here” while I was in Minnesota recently.  We both really enjoy going to the movies. In fact, his birthday request one year was to see how many movies we could see in one day.  That was a fun birthday!

The movie “Here” was hard to get into at first, thinking that it was possibly too “artsy” for me.  Then, after Tom Hanks arrived on the scene, it got better. We finally understood what was happening.  At the end, it brought tears to both our eyes. 

One comment Tom Hanks’ character made after his father had died when his wife asked him how he was, he said he was “sad”.  Then he said something about how “sad” is an important emotion.  I have given a lot of thought to that.

On Facebook, in many people’s scrapbooks, and in conversations, we often hear about the good, happy times in people’s lives.  Often when we ask someone how they are, they say they are “good” or “fine”.  How many say they are “sad”? How many “sad” occasions appear in scrapbooks?  How many “sad” posts are on Facebook when it is such an important feeling. We can see this in the famous verses from Ecclesiastes that the song “Turn! Turn! Turn” by the Byrds  parallels.  From Ecclesiastes we read:

A Time for Everything

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

Hopefully we all have at least one person in our life that can hear us say, “I am sad,” and not give those platitudes such as “cheer up”, “get over it”, “life will get better”, but rather be like Job’s friends and just sit down next to us and “be there”.

Job 2:11-13

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

Just sitting there saying nothing is not the easiest thing to do, as we are wired to fix things, make them better, help.  Yet, it is important to read the person, as Job’s friends did, and give up our instincts to make things better, since we rarely can.

Let’s go out there and allow others to be “sad” for a time, if needed.

Let’s go out there and be a real friend.