Welcome

Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Friday, November 23, 2018

Time to Lament


We cannot let these days of ritual remembrance and mourning pass this year without a larger call for lament. Lament is grief given voice. It is, as Old Testament scholar and theologian Walter Brueggemann writes, “dangerous, restless speech.” It is restless because it calls domination systems into question. It is dangerous because it refuses to settle for the way things are and demands change.
                                                                        The Rev. Laura Mayo in the Houston Chronicle
___________________________________________________

there are times when our souls tell us
it is time to lament

it is time to give voice to grief

in the bible there is a book of laments
the people grieving over a great nation
no longer great

“How deserted lies the city,
    once so full of people!
How like a widow is she,
    who once was great among the nations!”

perhaps it is time to lament

the psalms often Lament
the cry to God with the grief of hopes dashed
pain experienced

“how long O’ Lord, how long, will you turn your face from me”

Jesus lamented as he sat on that rock in Gethsemene
pouring our his anguish
not over his death
but over the human condition which occasioned it

perhaps it is time to lament

I lament the hate and fear that permeates our country
Showing not strength but weakness
and driving us to embrace all manner of evil

the caging of children
the neglect of the vulnerable
the exclusion of those seeking refuge

I lament a nation culture where lying and bullying is the norm
I lament division and enmity
the dehumanization of others
the creation of enemies

I lament the greed that will let children go hungry,
while filling the bank accounts of the very, very wealthy

I lament the injustices poured upon people of color
And the treatment of the LGBTQI community

I lament the money spent on the military, and the machinery of death
I lament that there are people who are homeless
and people who will face a bitter winter on the street

I lament what we have done to the earth
and lament the cold blindness of those who perpetuate the abuse

I lament the fact that we leave the systems in place that destroy us
That we leave leaders in place who do not lead us

But most of all I lament my own complicity 
The ways in which I daily, participate in that which is evil

I lament my own unwillingness to change
To stand up
To speak out

My own failure to, as the saying goes,
Be the change I want to see in the world

Yes
It is time to lament

No comments:

Post a Comment