Our Need for Lament

We must take time to Lament.
In a world that looks for instant answers and solutions,
In a world that seeks to point fingers utilizing one-upmanship and memes,
desiring to be right more than compassionate,
We must take time to lament.

Lament takes patience.
It cannot be microwaved, or achieved instantaneously.
It cannot be swiped through, pushed through, nor sped through with haste and hurry.
Lament must be inhabited.

In lament we experience the darkness, the extinguished light of hope.
In lament we recognize the void, we listen to the void, we experience the void.
In lament we hear the created silence,
and we sit in it.
Lament must be occupied.

Lament is not comfortable.
It is not pleasurable.
It is not amusing nor delightful.
Lament is where pain is clutched,
where we look pain in the eyes, acknowledging its existence,
confronting the mayhem it has created.

In lament deep calls to deep, for what is in the depths of your being cries out to be connected with the depths of God. To be connected with his suffering, to know his suffering, and to know that he suffers with us. We are not alone.

In lament we experience the depths of God’s love for us. We are not alone.
In lament we are confronted with God’s reality,
that this is not the way things are supposed to be,
or were supposed to be,
or will be.
Huh… Or will be.

As our long national nightmare continues on, we must learn to lament. We must pause to grieve, to connect deeply and profoundly with our own pain and suffering and with the pain and suffering of others. No matter how much we desire to escape or sidestep pain and suffering we cannot, we must not. We must allow that connection and experience to others pain and to our own to change us both individually and collectively. We must be changed by our pain… because if we are not, then what is it for?

The vision of Jesus is to bring people together, meeting one another, dialoguing with one another, hearing each others stories: loving each other. Jesus wants to tear down the walls that separate us, bringing healing and wholeness… this is why we must sit in each others suffering. We must know each others pain, and from the knowing grows compassion, and from compassion grows action, and from action comes change: real change, true change–change that not only breaks down walls but breaks down the systems and structures that tear us apart. That is why we as the body of Christ, the Church, are called to be at the forefront of this mission. We have a call to make our world a place of love and peace.

It’s our move.