A task carries the conversation

Purely social settings are hard work when you are lonely, because there is nothing in the room to do except be socially successful, and you are already watching yourself.

A setting with a task in it is much easier. There is a thing happening, the thing takes the pressure, and the talking happens around the edges of it. Nobody has to perform. Silence is not a failure, because everybody is busy.

The tradition is full of these. A halaqah with a text to read. Helping at an event. Visiting someone who is ill. Being the person who stacks the chairs. None of them require you to be interesting.

It lists them, more or less in those terms. Your smiling in the face of your brother is charity. Giving directions to a man who is lost is charity. Removing a rock, a thorn or a bone from the road is charity. Pouring what is left in your bucket into your brother's bucket is charity. Every item on that list is a small physical act done alongside somebody rather than a conversation with them, and every one of them counts as something.

And the smallest repeatable act of all is named as the way to the largest outcome, in answer to a question the Prophet, peace be upon him, asked himself. Shall I tell you about a thing which, if you do it, you will love one another? Spread the salam among yourselves.