How are you and all that jazz...

Louis Armstrong's song Wonderful World has the lines
   I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
   They're really saying I love you
Really?
It's just a greeting, isn't it. How do you do? or How are you? or How ya goin'?
They say it at the supermarket as they cruise past with no intention of waiting for the obligatory
 'Fine thanks.'
 I have a friend who always says, 'I'm terrific.' Really ? Is he the supreme optimist?
Winnie the Pooh has a line that goes something like, 'When people ask me I always say Very well thank you and how are you today?*
That's the expectation isn't it?
But what if the answer is really, 'Shit', A friend tells me he used that answer and the person who asked how he felt was astounded.
Sure I have been known to use how are you as a greeting and then later into the conversation say, 'Well how ARE you?'
So do we need to take time to really let people tell us how they are? And if so to be ready to listen. I didn't make tit to morning tea after church this week because someone began to tell a freind her story and I was there too. Long after the other woman left I was still hearing the story and sharing a little  of my own.
So now I do know some of how that person is, and I do care about it and what she is facing, and I do want to pray for her and keep in within my thoughts. She laughed and smiled and is determined to be positive, but maybe some days are shit and she needs to knwo that she can tell us how she feels.
So maybe Louis is right that to asking how you are is a way of saying I love you.

*Here is the correct version!

 ' If people ask me,
    I always tell them:
  "Quite well, thank you, I'm very glad to say."
   If people ask me,
   I always answer,
  "Quite well, thank you, how are you today?"
   I always answer,
   I always tell them,
   If they ask me
   Politely...
  BUT SOMETIMES
  I wish
      That they wouldn't.'

AA Milne