Bishop Hughes reflects on how a deceptively simple question – “How are you doing?” – can open space for truth, healing, and deeper community, and urges us to try it this holiday season. (Time: 5:44.)
Video Transcript
This is Bishop Hughes in the Diocese of Newark. I don’t know if you remember this, but I think it was a little over a year and a half ago, may have been as many as two years ago now, that the character from Sesame Street, Elmo, sent out a note over one of the social media platforms asking one question: “How’s everybody doing?” That one simple question was answered by hundreds of thousands of people who told the truth about how they were doing. Talked about the challenges, talked about sadness, talked about success, talked about what they hoped for, talked about frustration, just talked about their lives, all to Elmo online.
And there was something about that, that I just thought, what an effective way to do things. And so about every six to eight months or so, I send a note out to my friends who I don’t see as much as I would like to see. And I have known them for decades. I love them to pieces. But we’re all at that stage where we’re dealing with things. Children trying to find their way in life, having graduated from college, aging parents, parents who have died, making hard decisions about the work that we do and how long we want to continue doing that work, all of those kinds of things going on at this time of life.
And time is at a premium, and we don’t get to see each other as much as we do. And of course, when we do it is absolutely wonderful. But every six to eight months or so, I send out the Elmo question. I just send a note to my friends asking, “How are y’all doing?” And every single time I do it, there is a cascade of responses and in quite, quite a bit of depth, and it’s a text chain, so we all see the responses. And at this point, everybody kind of knows what’s going on. They know I’m asking the Elmo question, but it’s also a chance for us to catch up, and those little text message catch ups will go on for quite a while.
I bring this up because as we head towards Christmas and head towards some time off, a time of rest, you might consider asking that Elmo question. We spend quite a lot of time talking about things that aren’t important. We spend a lot of time trying to be safe in our conversations, because we don’t want anything to get to a place that puts us at political odds or in conflict. We want to try to get along with the people in our families and the people that we gather with over holidays. But asking that question – “How’s everybody doing?” – when I think about it, that’s the sort of question that Jesus seemed to know the answer to. He didn’t just walk up and say, “How are you doing?” He walked up to people and told them who they were, what they were doing, asked them if they wanted healing – he went straight to the hard questions.
And I recognize as you are standing in the kitchen, helping to cook a meal, or wrapping presents with a young person in the room next door, or doing all of the things, the travel, etc., that has to go on, that you don’t necessarily want to ask, “What do you want to be, how do you need to be healed?” You don’t necessarily have the space or the bandwidth to ask that deep question. But if you ask the question, “How are y’all doing?” or, “How are you doing?” – I’m letting you know my Texan is still alive in me. But if you ask that question and allow space for people to answer it, that that time will be a blessing to you and it will be a blessing to them.
You don’t have to fix anything about it. You might learn something about how they are doing, and you might find out that people are going through the exact same thing that you are going through. This is how we become a fuller community, a deeper community, a community that is genuinely with each other. Who tells the truth, who’s transparent, a way that we really get to know each other and remember who we are.
The time that we’re in has been so disruptive for such a prolonged time, and the messaging about our divisions and the reasons we can’t get along is relentless. But I find that when we ask the question, when we ask how somebody really is, and then we wait for that answer, we give them a place where they know that they will be heard, that something wonderful happens.
My hope is for you over the holidays that that wonderful sense of connection happens with you and many people. I hope the same for myself. If you don’t know it, that this information has been out in life for a while, but starting the 13th of December through the 13th of February, I will be away on sabbatical. I’ll come back in February, hopefully full, fully refreshed and ready to continue ministry, and to hear how you’re doing, but also to tell you how David and I have been as we have spent some time away.
Until then, blessings on the rest of your Advent and on Christmas and Epiphany and your new year and all those good things that come your way. I hope and I pray that you have those wonderful moments of deep connection with not just the people you love, but the people who you happen to be near, the people who you ask, “How are y’all doing?”
