Learning to Lament

by Ryan T. 

biblical lament soothes the suffering and disrupts the comfortable

Bad news swirls around us blowing our hopes and dreams like leaves in the fall wind.  A long awaited for baby born to parents who have already seen their share of hardship only to be taken away days later, Eleven Jewish worshipers gunned down during Shabbat services, neighbors who have the calling to protect one another and work for the common good together instead choose to ignore, violate and even attack one another.  These are just a few examples of the violence and loss from this past week for me.  I deeply struggle to sit with the pain, betrayal, loss, and fear that wash over me.  I have learned to stuff and avoid these uncomfortable emotions.  Dan Allender articulates it this way,

Ignoring our emotions is turning our back on reality.  Listening to our emotions ushers us into reality.  And reality is where we meet God…Emotions are the language of the soul.  They are the cry that gives the heart a voice…However, we often turn a deaf ear—through emotional denial, distortion, or disengagement.

We not only have our own suffering but can easily be overwhelmed by the numbers of people who are forgotten by our society—the last, the least, and the lost among us—and wonder who is there to help and to save them from drowning.

It is hard to keep our eyes open to suffering. It drains the soul and numbs the heart.

It is in these times that lament can become a precious companion. We can take great comfort in the loud cries and mourning that have echoed throughout time and history as captured in the poems, songs, and statements of lament. Indeed, a great portion of the Hebrew Scriptures comes in the form of lament, both individual and communal lament

In the psalms of lament, the anguished cries of the prophets, and in the life and ministry of Jesus, there are pioneers who have gone before all who grieve and suffer. They have experienced the terror of all the twists and turns, the drops and descents of human life. They gave voice to their lament.

A biblical lament cries out to God. This is not an internally focused process of grieving, it is first and foremost a prayer, a conversation.  A lament deals with a specific situation that is painful, or unjust and expresses our raw emotional responses:  sorrow, anger, disappointment, etc.  

​​Below is a lament written by Ann Weems that is helping me learn to lament.  

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O Holy One, I can no longer see.
Blinded by tears 
that will not cease, 
I can only cry out to you
and listen
for your footsteps

Are you, too, O God, 
blinded by tears?
Have you watched this world
pile its hate
onto the faces
of your little ones
until your eyes are so filled with tears
the you cannot see me
waiting for you?
Are you, O God, 
deafened by the expletives
of destruction and death?
Have you heard
so many obscenities 
that you cannot hear
my moaning?
O God, if you are blind, 
can't you hold out 
your hand to me?
If you're deaf,
can't you call my name?

How long, O God, 
am I to sit
on the plain of blindness?
How long am I to listen
to the profanity
of my enemies
who mock:
"Where is your God now?"

Show them, O my God, 
that you remember.  
Reach out your hand
and dry my eyes
that I might see
a new beginning
Open your mouth
and call me by name
that I might know
you remember me.
Claim me that I might
announce in the marketplace
that my God is here.

O my heart,
give thanks!
My God is here even
in the midst of destruction

-Lament written by Ann Weems