Grieving in a Social Media World

Over at Christianity Today, Ken Morefield writes about how to grieve in a social media world:

As I advanced in years, my peers began catching up to me in terms of being initiated with grief, but my head start always seemed to give me an advantage at avoiding the really big mistakes we all make when others look to us for comfort. If I didn’t always know how to help, I had read Job enough times to know what gestures and sayings had the greatest capacity to make things worse. Catch up my peers eventually did, and I thought I was done with the role of experienced trailblazer, at least as far as matters non-professional were concerned.

But then the Internet happened, and I realized the role of a journalist mirrors that of a professor in one unexpected way: the people you instruct move on, endlessly, often to be replaced by those who need you to say what you have said already but which they are hearing for the first time.

So, in that vein, here are some “take them or leave them” suggestions for appropriate ways to respond to death (or people dying) in the public square. They are all, admittedly, based on personal experience and were learned the hard way.

First—and most importantly—it’s not about you.

Read the rest here.