It amazes me how so many people are uncomfortable with silence or are so given to shallow conversations that they cannot avoid making statements comparable to "How's the weather?", and somehow thinking that they are engaging in an exchange of sociable meaning. It may be viewed as a pleasantry or as being polite, but all I hear are broken records, lingual lemmings, so much so that it has evolved from being an annoyance to pure hilarity.
What I am speaking of are the holiday inquiries that visit us each year, almost as a mere replacement for the usual conversation fillers that are used the rest of the year (i.e., "How are you?", "What's up?", etc). The most prevalent examples of this most predictable behavior generally occur three times per year: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. By now, I am sure that you know what I am talking about. It happens in the break room at work, the lobby at church and the hallways at school. Like empty pinatas or loaves of white bread, they make our verbal exchanges malnutritious and make us comfortable as we masquerade our way through unenriched relationships and settle for the obvious surface of things.
"Are you ready for Thanksgiving?" "How was your Thanksgiving?" "Are you ready for Christmas?" "How was your Christmas?" "Are you ready for New Years?" "How was your New Years?"
Yes, there they are: the six questions that are asked each year and are just as likely to visit us as the fact that the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening. As much as these questions drive me crazy, they are the type of questions that when asked, one almost has to respond with "How was yours?" You will never find me initiating these questions, but if you ask me one of them, I will most likely ask you how yours was, at the risk of being rude.
There are some, I will admit, that do actually mean that they really want to know how your holiday was, and they may throw in a little spice with the question, like "What are you doing for __________ (fill in the blank)?" And to you, the genuine few, I salute you.
I understand that many of us (including myself) use verbal pleasantries just to be polite. "Good morning. How are you today?" is something that you will find me saying most every day to certain people. It is like saying "Please" and "Thank you." Our culture has made it natural to utter such phrases at certain times in order to be considered civil and a person of etiquette. What kills me about the holiday questions is that they scream of predictability, yet it seems that most of the time people think they are being original or clever by inquiring as such.
If you are one of the millions of people that make me laugh by asking these questions each year, please understand that I do not mean to offend. In the words of George Costanza, "It's not you. It's me." This is just one of the many things in life that I cannot help but notice and if I were more normal, I would not pick society apart as I do.
Also, I implore you, do not stop. It would kill my article and would damper my spirits each holiday season. But if you would like to give the question some thought and would possibly like to go from the obvious surface to the meaningful depths of honesty and vulnerability, you may find that not only does the silence feel less uncomfortable, but your conversations will become more meaningful and the questions that you ask more original.
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3 comments:
Isn't it strange how we view communion in the churches we grow up in? It so easily turns into being all about us and our sin instead of thinking on Christ and what He has done. I used to sit and, like a good christian girl, list all the things I could think of that I had done wrong and confess them before communion was over. It sounds so practiced, so much so, that you loose the meaning of communion and start to go through motions that are empty. It was in high school that I remember Kevin mention how much this all bothered him. And I thought, dumbly, is there any other way to do it? And when he said it is about remembering Christ, and the purpose is NOT to feel guilt over our sin every time we take communion, it all the sudden made sense to me. Since then, I have no longer sat and gone to a confessional. Not that we shouldn't be desiring God to transform our sinful desires into ones for Him, but that we realize we are unable to do it ourselves. Of course, Will would be able to write a book on all this relating to communion and the new covenant:), but I am not as smart as that:).
this is connie farmer. i am resisting the urge to type, 'what's up?'
the next time i see you, i'm just gonna stand there and look at you instead of asking how you are. we'll see how comfortable the silence is. and i certainly won't inquire about your holidays.
either that, or i'll say, 'how are you? how was your christmas? how was new year's? oh, and i never asked you how your thanksgiving was. how was it?'
i'm torn...
you guys need to come over soon.
Connie, chances are that you may never see this. But just replying to your comment from 2008. :)
It was so good to see you and Kevin a couple of weeks ago, after not seeing you in so long. Thank you for the smile and warm hug. It is incredible how with certain people, time cannot separate or change things. I truly love you both very much.
You asked how I was doing, and I either said "fine" or "pretty good", or something to that effect, and with deep thought and consideration, you looked at me and asked "Really?"
I appreciate you so much -- I would have said more, but we were in a cold parking lot, and there was a third person there, that I had only just met... So I left it at "fine."
But you were more perceptive than that.
I miss you both, and will always deeply love and respect you.
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