Can Silence Speak Louder Than Words? The Power of Offering Quiet Support
- Rose D
- Apr 2
- 2 min read
April 13th, 2025 Palm Sunday readings
“When one door closes another opens” and “Everything happens for a reason” are, in my opinion, two platitudes that are never useful to say to someone who is facing a loss. They feel like what Job’s friends would have said to him if they were living today.
Over the past few months I have been thinking about platitudes after several friends were laid off, and others remain fearful of losing their jobs. I want to do something to lessen their fear and so I reach for words. Some are the sole breadwinners of their families, others are single with no one to rely on for help, and a few are older and trying to figure out what to do at this stage in their career in a market flooded with younger candidates. I often forget that Job’s friends initially sat in silence with him for 7 days, to bear witness to his grief. If only they had stopped there, and not delved into explanations. It’s a good reminder that often presence is more needed than words.
Part of the allure of platitudes and cliches is that they make a complex problem seem simple to solve. Those empty words give the person saying them a feeling that their “wise” words are helpful to the sorrowful person when in actuality those words imply that the real problem is the sorrowful person. If the distraught would only look at the situation with a positive attitude they would be moving on. If they saw their loss as an opportunity, they would be excited about the future. As one of my mentors used to say for every challenge that arose at work ,”Onward and upward.” If only it were that easy. Sometimes we have to sit with a setback before we can get back up.
Today we celebrate Palm Sunday and the beginning of Holy Week. We also encounter the Gospel of Luke which describes the Passion of Christ. During the Passion there are no words that make the torture and execution of Jesus more tolerable or acceptable. No one in the Gospel is heard minimizing the situation or telling the disciples that it is going to be okay. Instead the people of that day and of today are a witness to a total injustice. We will sit alongside each other in the upcoming Holy Week and leave mass in silence on Holy Thursday and enter into Good Friday mass in silence. A good reminder of why silence and presence are often the best we can offer to one another.
Rose Devasia Anderson
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