On Surface Relationships vs. Caring Relationships

          This is a sample of a typical conversation, wther in schools, in the workplace, in places of worship and even (dare I say it?) in some families, indeed, in any setting:
         "Hi," you say to the other person you are encountering, "How are you doing?"
         "Oh, I'm just fine, can't complain," the other person says. "And you?"
         "Oh," you say, "I'm doing just fine also, can't complain here, either."
        
         Typical conversation? I wonder how many times we all say, "Oh, I'm doing just fine," or hear the same thing from others, when this is very far from the truth. Right? I wonder what would happen if, when we are asked how we are doing, we would be more open and more candid. Would we dare say, "How am I doing? I'm petrified because I have just been diagnosed with cancer or heart disease (or some other serious condition). I'm fearful about losing my job. I have lost my job. I'm petrified of losing my home. My home is going into foreclosure. I"m a victim of abuse or crime. I'm having lots of pain. I have lost a loved one. I need your help." You get the point.
         And when we ask a typical person during the day, "How are you doing?" do we really want to know how that person is actually doing? I think this is what strikes us about Jesus in the Gospels. According to an account, when He was exhausted and saw that huge crowds of people wanted to see Him, it is recorded, "and he had pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he taught them many things that they needed to know." (Mark 6:34 TLB).
          Don't get me wrong. I know that it is not wise or appropriate to reveal our personal emotions or problems with every person we encounter in a day. It is not even realistic. We would get nothing done if we entered into a messy conversations with everyone we encounter in a day. There are many relationships where we are wise to keep our exchanges confined to light exchanges and to social small talk. There are many people with whom we can never be friends. My problem with all this superficiality is that we often maintain superficial relationships where we can and should go deeper.
         Take relationships in our places of worship, where, because of the nature of our relationships, potential exists for much caring. Yet in so many of our places of worship, particularly in more affluent and larger ones, our exchanges tend to be marked by light exchanges and social small talk rather than than by trust, openness, and authentic caring and sharing. This is very unfortunate. Why is this?
  In my opinion, so much of this is because in our free world, our places of worship are seen as "museums for the worthy and the respectable and the beautiful people" rather than as "hospitals for those who are sick with moral maladies, emotional baggage or who have been pummeled by life." Right?
         In my own experience, I recall that as a child, my grandmother took me to worship services (later, I was simply dropped off). Always, my siblings and I would be forced to submit to my grandmother's inspection of how we were dressed. Now don't get me wrong. Bless my late grandmother's heart, she loved God and her church but she focused too much on keeping up with appearances. As a child, when I entered my place of worship, I had to "look perfect" and "act perfect." There was less emphasis on attendance out of our deep sense of our need for God in this world and our love for Him and His people. And later, when I entered adulthood full of emotional baggage from a troubled childhood and youth, when I interacted with people in my places of worship, I felt the burden to "pass as one of them" and to avoid stigmatizing myself by revealing my past or my present challenges. And I wonder how many others were doing these exact same things and still do, in so many places of worship. Especially larger, more affluent ones.
         Even in families, we tend the skirt the real, pressing, festering issues that plague so many of us. So many of us have topics that are simply "off-limits" and which we know we had better keep secret or else we will suffer repercussions. This causes a sick atmosphere where secrets, suspicions and lies pile up--often for decades and even being passed from one generation to another.
         In person and online, I have noticed that, over and over again, caring relationships and authentic sharing take place when people suffer losses and tragedies. I wonder if this is one answer to the age-old question, "Why does God allow us to suffer?" Could one reason be that sorrow, loss and tragedy draw us to each other to care for each other?
         Isn't this just about what we call "keeping it real"?