We hate to be given guidance
(told what to do). Remember your
guidance counselor in high school?
Yeah. It rubs up against our once

necessary survival skill of total-
selfishness which no longer is a
survival skill but a one-way ticket
to self and other destruction. So,

what to do? What do you want
anyone to do with and for you?
Stand with you? Sit with you?
Silently listen to you? It’s “sym”

pathy — feeling together in suffer-
ing and even more “em” pathy —
getting inside the feeling and suffer-
ing with. Of course, there are times

we simply need to be told things,
like an adult version of don’t put
your finger in the electric socket
of life, but mostly, almost entire-

ly, we need someone simply to
be — with us (to come alongside)
and we with them in the healing
silence so together, we may hear

the still, small voice of God’s love
powerfully penetrating our being,
energizing the existential enervation —
and giving us hope eternal.