Religion in the City: Wu Wei – Friend

This last week my best friend Kris called from Chicago, she said she had just gotten into a fender-bender because of a broken relationship.

“I need to feel this, I just need to allow myself to grieve this loss or I’m just going to go back to him” is what she told me she was saying to herself over and over again when she hit the other car. Although apparently when the gentleman she hit walked over to her window to get her license plate number and insurance, all she could get out to the man was “I am so sorry ‘I just lost a friend yesterday’”.

The man felt so bad that he told her not to worry about the dent. “He just got back in his car and drove away!” The funny part was that Kris did not realize why the man drove away until we were talking about it on the phone.

I said “you know the guy left because of the loss you were crying about he interpreted as a death you were grieving! I do not think he would have just driven away if you would have told him ‘I’m sorry I hit your car, I was trying to put the guy I was seeing out of my mind so I would not go back to him!’”

In the midst of Kris and I talking about the grief of her recent break up I found myself saying words like “there are plenty of fish in the sea” and “I’m sure there is a silver lining somewhere”? But it was not till I used the words “It must not have been in God’s time” that Kris called me on my shtuff. “Why do you keep changing the subject? You keep brushing me off with ‘what could be’ instead of just hearing where I am at!

I was caught! As a counselor and chaplain I have spend countless nights at the bedside of people dealing with loss. And rule one of being a chaplain is the art of just being present with people. Not trying to fix, dismiss or evade the truth of what they are experiencing. It is so much easier to give optimistic remarks than it is to take the time to simply be in the moment with someone.

Buddhist would call it the philosophy of “Wu Wei” or non-doing. Wu-wei is the art of seeing one’s self as being connected with the flow of others. The act of being in the moment they are in. It is where our contemporary expression, “going with the flow”, comes from. The Apostle Paul told the church of Rome to support their brothers by “…rejoicing with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.” (Rom 12:15)

Switzerland doctor Elizabeth Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying talks about seven cycles that grieving people have to be allowed to go though: shock, denial, anger, depression, testing and then acceptance. Often we want our friends and family to skip their “anger, depression and testing” and just reach “acceptance” on our time line. Instead of following their flow or weeping while they weep we come up with optimistic quips to try to fix or disengage them from their emotions.

When we constantly dismiss the losses or emotions of people around us we are subsequently saying to them “your feeling should not be expressed”, “you should be ashamed of your emotions” or “your feelings do not matter to me”. What we meant as optimism or relief can lead people to think they need to suppress their suffering or loss.

What I call showing Wu Wei in a relationship, my best friend Kris was calling friendship. She needed a friend to be in the moment with her instead of trying to dismiss or fix her current situation.

So this week while your attempting show Wu Wei, or “mindfulness” do not forget that sometimes all your friends want to hear from you is “that sucks” and “I would love to hear all about it!”