Tag: Lament

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The Purpose of Lament Today

Before I begin, this entire post comes from the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v Wade. If you celebrate that decision, this post has nothing for you; we have no common ground in that regard. You can also add other existential threats revealed by the January 6th Commission, the stripping of vote rights, and six-year-olds telling five-year-olds how to respond to an active shooter unprompted yet we do nothing to increase the safety of our already born children.; if all that sounds like political “Left Wing Conspiracy” stuff to you, this post also has nothing for you.

Today I can do nothing to help or improve the situation. I can do lots of things — write, post on social media, call my congressional leaders, even march and take up a sign — but none of it will actually help. Others have already written the words, social media does nothing but echo and antagonize, my congressional leaders do not care about my opinion because I do not have their letter nor lots of money or influence, and marching today seems like a fools errand if marching weeks ago did nothing.

Some of these things may help tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or in November, but today I cannot change anything.

This sounds fatalist, like I have resigned to this world created by powerful people who claim my religion in name but clearly believe different things about God, government, and love of neighbor — and, for that matter, the nature of our savior — but I have not. Even in my knowledge of the uselessness of action today, my mind continues to run through what I can do tomorrow, next week, next month, whatever. I planted seeds before today that sprouted into small changes in hearts and minds this week. I have started finding the voice I lost over the past two years, and I have started using it.

But today none of that matters. We crossed a line, and today we cannot cross back. I can scream in outrage, I can point fingers and blame, and I point out all the obvious lies, hypocrisies, and wrongs we have pointed out for months and years, but none of that will change today.

So today I cry out to God in anger, in mourning, in sadness, in fear. I cry out to God, asking why our leaders failed us. I cry out to God, asking why people allowed themselves to believe lies. I cry out to God, asking why God’s church has so distorted its reading of the Holy Scriptures to get to this point. I cry out to God, demanding answers and furious at why God allowed this to happen.

Psalm 44 comes to mind. A couple of select verses:

11 You’ve handed us over like sheep for butchering;
     you’ve scattered us among the nations.
12 You’ve sold your people for nothing,
     not even bothering to set a decent price.
13 You’ve made us a joke to all our neighbors;
     we’re mocked and ridiculed by everyone around us.
(Psalm 44:11-13 CEB)

To everyone who will find themselves wanting to call me the awful names you call advocates for women’s reproductive and bodily autonomy rights, this goes so much farther than just abortions. We have no constitutional right to privacy. We have no constitutional right to marriage equality, including interracial marriage. We have no right or expectation that the Supreme Court will follow precedent if it conflicts ideologically with the members of the court. In the immediate term this hurts and threatens everyone physically capable of having a child, but the repercussions will hurt and threaten all of us who do not wield power (which, if you read this, includes you).

God, why did you let your church get sold to the highest bidder, and not just sold to the highest bidder but without actually gaining anything in the process? *

I lament today because all I can do is cry out. I cannot fix it today, I cannot even improve it slightly today, I can out cry out to God and ask why, even if God will stubbornly refuse to answer and refuse to intercede.

We lament to acknowledge, to name definitively our pain and suffering, and to name it out loud for others to hear. We do not lament to fix, and, even if lament can start the healing process, it does on have to. We lament to name, aloud, wrong and evil.

I do not purport to have the absolute prescriptive correct response to today; I did not have my bodily autonomy threatened today, so I cannot begin to say anyone who did should do anything I say. I can suggest, though, that doom scrolling, burning energy writing opinion pieces that echo pieces written over the last fifty years, and getting into yelling matches on social media — unless a couple of those truly help your processing of these things — will only drain your energy and change nothing for the better.

I recommend a day of lament, a day of rest (if you can), and a day of mourning. Action will not help the situation today, unfortunately, but lament may help your heart and soul.

My two cents while I try to process all of this.

Peace,
– Robby

* This interpretation of Psalm 44:12 is influenced by Justin Welby on the Everything Happens Podcast.

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“Where are you, God?”: A lament

I wake up almost every morning and look at my phone. My social media reads a litany of pain and suffering. The news reads a litany of ever-evolving chaos and glaringly inadequate response. Fear, anger, sickness, hopelessness; we have almost nothing else to share in this time, they have nothing else to report at this time.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

Two white men chased down and hunted a black man like they would a wild animal. The wheels of justice has just now – after months – started to turn after the African American community had to risk their lives protesting to make it start. No one has charged them yet. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations basically said the men had the legal right to perform a “citizen’s arrest” on him and, when he rightly resisted, murder him.

And I have no words.

My savior, my teachers, my parishioners, my God require that I speak out and condemn racism. My dear friend lives in fear of when her beautiful young son can make someone “fear for their life” by simply existing. My heart aches in remembrance of a time when I would have defended these men instead of seeing the blatant racism at work. My soul demands justice, yet justice seems to retreat as racism takes a stronger hold on our nation.

And I have no words.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

The past few days have fill themselves with conspiracies. People I love – and people who serve congregations as pastor – have spread misinformation about COVID-19, dangerous misinformation that threatened to harm the people they served. People want to resume normal life – a life that will no loner exist when this ceases – and that desire has blinded them to truth.

Some of our governments have chosen the economy over the least and the lowest. They demand the poorest and most vulnerable risk their lives to survive. They have suggested churches serve as the “test group” for reopening everything. They have the ability and resources to create safety nets for those most at risk and instead create safety nets for the richest and least at risk.

I have words, I have spoken words, and they have fallen deaf on the ears of those who can make decisions.

Our governments have all but said these decisions will unnecessarily kill people, but the economy needs the sacrifice. Our market economy – not the makers, not the producers, not the laborers, but the market that declares values on nothing more than speculation – demands a sacrifice, and the weakest and lowest will serve as that sacrifice.

We can protect human survival of the least and the lowest, yet we protect the economy.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

Exhaustion has taken me. Though so many other things – much more important things – weigh heavy on my shoulders, the hours and energy I must exert to keep a church going have drained me. When I feel guilty over only working 50 hours this week – and that exhausting me – I know burnout has come.

And I have no solution. I have no alternatives aside from scrapping our entire worship service and creating something less – which also will take energy and creativity I do not think I have.

God instructed the Israelites to plant gardens in their exile, but I do not even know what seeds and vegetables look like in this exile from what I know. I cannot till ground I do not see, I cannot sow seeds I do not have, and I cannot harvest something I would not even recognize.

But I will stay in this exile for as long as the safety of the people I serve requires. I just do not know how I will survive it.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

I do not hear your voice, God. I do not see your hand. I do not know how to keep sharing your Word in this time. I do not know how to speak as a prophet in this time. I do not hear your calling me in the night, I do not hear you calling me to your temple, I do not hear your calling me at all.

I thought I had experienced a “Dark Night of the Soul” previously, but I realized now I had heard God calling me. God did not answer my question of “Why?”, but God did keep calling me to continue on, preserver, and fight for the privilege of sharing God’s Word and Christ’s sacraments.

Now I do not hear God. I believe God does not call people to simply survive and for churches to simply survive, but I only hear that call. God has stopped making God’s presence known to me.

I need guidance now more than ever, yet God’s voice has left me.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

Other voices have not. When I post this, someone will try to fix it. Someone will admonish me for not feeling God. Someone will say, “It will all get better.”  Someone will lovingly ask me how I am in a week, expecting things to get better and unprepared to hear that nothing gets better right now, just varying degrees of bad.

I need to lament, and my lament will not end. My pain has not lessened, my frustration has not lessened, my exhaustion has not lessened. I have no end in sight; I find myself exiled from all the things I know and all the self-care practices I have used. Even if I could take a vacation right now – which I cannot – I would spend that vacation in my house in which my living rooms serves as my office and my pulpit.

Someone will have the answer to my lament because they cannot bear to sit with my lament.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

I lament, and yet, like the psalmist, I continue to ask God for relief.

Come, Lord Jesus, come. Please, come to me and speak to me again.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

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Let Me Lament

If you read this and you hear yourself echoed, know I feel your love and I understand why you try to make things feel better.  I get it, I truly do.

But please, let me lament.  Let me be sad and angry at things.  Let me not be okay with the fact that things go wrong.  Let me want to do better and struggle with the reality that I cannot.  Let me feel frustration when things outside of my control derail my effort.

Let me be not okay.

I appreciate you wanting me to have a healthier relationship with my own inherent inadequacy.  I appreciate the love you show me when I get really frustrated and want to quit.  I appreciate you wanting me to see the good in my work.  I appreciate you wanting me to know God loves me and my offerings.

I really do appreciate it.

But I need to mourn and lament.  Every week something new goes wrong.  Every week something inside my control and something outside my control fails.  Every week I have to fix something in service that threatens to derail the service.

Every week something negates – at least in part – my hours of work and labor.

I do not need public reminders of my status of beloved amidst of my lament.  I do not need suggestions on how to do my ministry differently amidst my lament.  I do not need to hear how you have an easier method and explain why I made the conscious decision to not do things that way.  I do not need to feel like I need to apologize for my frustration amidst my lament.

I need to lament and mourn.  Please, just let me be not okay with this and let me be frustration when things that should work do not.

Peace.
– Robby