Lament or There’s Nothing Like a Good Whine
Is a lament more than a pity me party? I have always thought lamenting was more about anguishing and yet that is how my very astute friend identified my need. She told me to go home and lament and write about it. I’m so very compliant.
I was and have been afraid to really let myself go to the place I identified as lament because I was afraid of getting stuck there. Even earlier this week I only allowed myself a five minute pity party. Why? My initial answer: my feelings have never truly been validated, not by me and certainly not by others. When I was afraid, instead of trying to understand, others just convinced me that I had no reason to really feel that way. When I felt vulnerable or in over my head, others told me I could handle it all or that I would be okay so just keep going. When I got (or get) angry, I’m told I’m just overreacting.
This has gone on my entire life. My solution has been to just restrain myself and minimize my emotions. Thinking and writing that made me want to just laugh right out loud! I don’t feel restrained and I seriously doubt that others would use that word to describe me. In fact, I’ve always feared I was far too close to a histrionic personality than was good or healthy. As I sit here reflecting on that, I wonder if that behavior isn’t more of a mask or a persona to cover my deeper retrained and denied self. Like clown make-up: a way to keep others from really seeing who I am and how I truly feel. I’m reminded of a reading that is read every retreat weekend by the spiritual fellowship I’m a part of entitled, “The Mask.” At one of those weekends a dear friend and sister in the faith gave the Piety Talk and as a demonstration of becoming transparent took off her make-up. It left her feeling extremely vulnerable as she never goes out in public without her “face” on.
As soon as I was able to get to a quiet place I pulled out the Psalms. My first landing place was Psalm 77. Here are the verses that seemed to express the Psalmist’s lament:
1- I cry out to God without holding back. Oh, that God would listen to me!
4-You don’t let me sleep. I am too distressed even to pray!
7-Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again show me favor?
Two of the Psalms that my friend recommended I read were Psalms 42 and 43. So I did. (Did I mention I’m a compliant sort of person?) I was surprised as I started reading Psalm 42. I was immediately reminded of the worship chorus, “As the Deer.” I have never associated that chorus with lamenting. It has always been a type of prayer for deeper spirituality. Reading on, I felt the writer’s anguish. He writes about thirsting for God because his tears have been his only food while his enemies surround and taunt him.
4-My heart is breaking as I remember how it used to be: I walked among the crowds of worshipers, leading a great procession to the house of God, singing for joy and giving thanks—it was the sound of a great celebration!
6-My God! Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember your kindness.
Psalm 43 is more of the same. The Psalmist asks the question “why?” but then seems to very quickly move on to a “but” and reminds himself of God’s goodness. These two Psalms seem to demonstrate more restraint than anguish. Feeling there must be more, I turned to Lamentations.
-2:10 The leaders of Jerusalem sit on the ground in silence, clothed in sackcloth. They throw dust on their heads in sorrow and despair.
-2:11 I have cried until the tears no longer come. My heart is broken, my spirit poured out.
-3:16-18 He has made me grind my teeth on gravel. He has rolled me in the dust. Peace has been stripped away, and I have forgotten what prosperity is. I cry out, “My splendor is gone! Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost!”
Jeremiah writes in Lamentations 3:22, “By his mercies we have been kept from complete destruction.” I have often turned to this passage when I needed to be reminded of God’s goodness. One of my favorite hymns seems to find its inspiration in this passage, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” But I had not really noticed Jeremiah’s words in verse 22 until today: “kept from complete destruction.”
Over the past few years when I have described the injury to my husband’s ankle I use phrases like: completely destroyed, or totally crushed. The doctor described his work as putting Humpty Dumpty together again. Somehow in that I got an image of complete destruction when in reality that just couldn’t be. Just because all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again, did that mean he was completely destroyed or they were limited in their ability? It may sound like an odd question until your life feels a bit like Humpty Dumpty and you’re wondering what to do with the pieces. If you’ve got pieces you’re not completely destroyed. God can do something with the pieces. The Gaithers understood that when they penned the words to that old chorus: “Heartache, broken pieces, ruined lives are why you died on Calvary. “
Jeremiah takes up another issue that I have been struggling with: silence. I feel like I’ve been silenced. It has been over four years since I’ve preached. This summer I was released from a job I loved where I had opportunity on nearly a daily basis to teach people. My current working situation has necessitated my dropping out of choir. When my two year old grandson wants you to listen to him instead of having grown up conversations he puts his finger to the side of his mouth and gives a clear, “Shhhh. Stop talking Mema.” The part that is understood in that is that when you stop talking you will then listen to him. I feel like I’ve gotten a “shhh!” from God. I just don’t know what I am supposed to hear.
Once I got home and was able to do some research about the spiritual practice of lamenting. The first article that I pulled up (http://www.umc-gbcs.org/site/apps/nlnet/content.aspx?c=frLJK2PKLqF&b=3929039&ct=5013819) stated quite emphatically that absence of lamenting inhibits our ability to learn from our mistakes and find forgiveness. I’m going to do some more research and reading (I just hunted down a book on half.com by Dan Allendar, “The Cry of the Soul” and put it in watch). I have to figure out how to incorporate this practice into my spiritual life.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Ripples of Consequence
Here I sit in a crowded plane, waiting for take off. What do you do in those moments? I’m never comfortable or relaxed so I do the two things that have the greatest ability to calm me down: I pray and I sing--in my head! While I don’t have a bad voice, I’m not sure those around me would appreciate my hymn selections. Those around me. As I sat there think-singing the verses of I Am Thine and Nearer My God to Thee, a very odd thought popped into my mind. I wonder if Jonah’s on board.
You remember Jonah. God told him to go start a revival in diabolical and dreadful Nineveh and Jonah headed in the exact opposite direction. His disobedience resulted in a horrible storm. The other guys on the boat began to wonder who’s disobedience was angering the gods and therefore to blame for the storm around them, and their possible deaths!
So, I began to wonder who around me was on the outs with God. Then I got one of those God-thumps. You know, the kind where God flips you upside the head with his holy finger to let you know you’ve missed the point “by this much.” Oh, you mean, how has my disobedience affected others? What storms have I caused by walking, living, in the exact opposite direction from where I’ve been called or directed to be? Who have I put in peril because I said no when I should have said yes? Or when I’ve said yes instead of saying no?
Since I made a major mess of my life it’s easier for me to see who my ripples have touched, up close that is. I know this impacted my husband and my children. But I continue to see the ripples as I look at my mom, aunt and uncle, brother and sister. But wait there’s more. There’s daughter’s new boyfriend, his kids and his family. My decision affects them, but creates a new set of ripples for daughter. There seems to be no end to the impact, to my shame, and my brokenness.
This line of thinking takes me in a lot of directions. First, I’m reminded of a little phrase I heard someone use a while back that I know I’ve said a lot. It goes like this: it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. It reminds me of my two year old grandson who thinks that a kiss makes all wounds better and saying I’m sorry will fix anything he’s done wrong. Lately he’s taken to exaggerating his sorrow in hopes of covering bigger blunders by saying, “I’m so, so sorry.” Are we any different? We act reactively or impulsively minimizing the consequences by figuring we’ll just apologize and that will set all things right. But we forget to consider the ripples. Who else could be impacted by our choice or our decision?
I’m glad the WWJD thing has lost some of its emphasis. I think far too many people asked the question without really understanding what Jesus would. They couldn’t because they really didn’t know Jesus and his radical way of thinking. I’m reminded of the time in John where it says that Jesus “had” to go through Samaria and he ended up meeting the woman at the well. If you get a chance check that one out on the map. Jesus didn’t have to take that route, there were other ways to get to where he was going, ways that would have taken less time and would not have put him in a situation where he would meet up with a woman of questionable repute. If Jesus thought like a businessman or marketing specialist, he definitely would have gone a different way. His “had” was about something far deeper, but you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t understand Jesus.
Jesus had the big picture of God’s love in mind. He was keenly aware that he was to be about his father’s business. I don’t know about you, but I lose sight of that sometimes. And consequently, I lose sight of the consequences, the ripples, of my choices. I hate to admit it, but I’m more like Esau than I ever realized. It’s amazing what I’ll give up when my belly’s growling and that stew smells so good. I get lost in the need or importance of the immediate and in my lostness or impetuousness I act/react without thinking and then rue the decision with all the angst of David that we find in his great Psalm 51.
Do you think anybody else on that plane wondered if Jonah was on board? I’m doubting it. As the plane leveled out to cruising altitude the pilot turned off the seatbelt sign. We were lulled into a sense of security by the purr of the engines. Interestingly, we were told that while we could now move about the cabin (aka: make a beeline to the toilet) while we were seated we should keep our belts buckled since we never knew when would encounter turbulence. Life is like that. You never know when the ripples are going to rise. That should have us doing two things: being proactive in our decisions, conscious of the consequences as much as we can be; and our reaction should always be one of humility. It’s not enough to be “so, so sorry.” We have to be broken, open, and dependent upon God. It’s the only way to ride the waves.
I made it to my destination that day. But my journey, is far from over.
You remember Jonah. God told him to go start a revival in diabolical and dreadful Nineveh and Jonah headed in the exact opposite direction. His disobedience resulted in a horrible storm. The other guys on the boat began to wonder who’s disobedience was angering the gods and therefore to blame for the storm around them, and their possible deaths!
So, I began to wonder who around me was on the outs with God. Then I got one of those God-thumps. You know, the kind where God flips you upside the head with his holy finger to let you know you’ve missed the point “by this much.” Oh, you mean, how has my disobedience affected others? What storms have I caused by walking, living, in the exact opposite direction from where I’ve been called or directed to be? Who have I put in peril because I said no when I should have said yes? Or when I’ve said yes instead of saying no?
Since I made a major mess of my life it’s easier for me to see who my ripples have touched, up close that is. I know this impacted my husband and my children. But I continue to see the ripples as I look at my mom, aunt and uncle, brother and sister. But wait there’s more. There’s daughter’s new boyfriend, his kids and his family. My decision affects them, but creates a new set of ripples for daughter. There seems to be no end to the impact, to my shame, and my brokenness.
This line of thinking takes me in a lot of directions. First, I’m reminded of a little phrase I heard someone use a while back that I know I’ve said a lot. It goes like this: it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission. It reminds me of my two year old grandson who thinks that a kiss makes all wounds better and saying I’m sorry will fix anything he’s done wrong. Lately he’s taken to exaggerating his sorrow in hopes of covering bigger blunders by saying, “I’m so, so sorry.” Are we any different? We act reactively or impulsively minimizing the consequences by figuring we’ll just apologize and that will set all things right. But we forget to consider the ripples. Who else could be impacted by our choice or our decision?
I’m glad the WWJD thing has lost some of its emphasis. I think far too many people asked the question without really understanding what Jesus would. They couldn’t because they really didn’t know Jesus and his radical way of thinking. I’m reminded of the time in John where it says that Jesus “had” to go through Samaria and he ended up meeting the woman at the well. If you get a chance check that one out on the map. Jesus didn’t have to take that route, there were other ways to get to where he was going, ways that would have taken less time and would not have put him in a situation where he would meet up with a woman of questionable repute. If Jesus thought like a businessman or marketing specialist, he definitely would have gone a different way. His “had” was about something far deeper, but you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t understand Jesus.
Jesus had the big picture of God’s love in mind. He was keenly aware that he was to be about his father’s business. I don’t know about you, but I lose sight of that sometimes. And consequently, I lose sight of the consequences, the ripples, of my choices. I hate to admit it, but I’m more like Esau than I ever realized. It’s amazing what I’ll give up when my belly’s growling and that stew smells so good. I get lost in the need or importance of the immediate and in my lostness or impetuousness I act/react without thinking and then rue the decision with all the angst of David that we find in his great Psalm 51.
Do you think anybody else on that plane wondered if Jonah was on board? I’m doubting it. As the plane leveled out to cruising altitude the pilot turned off the seatbelt sign. We were lulled into a sense of security by the purr of the engines. Interestingly, we were told that while we could now move about the cabin (aka: make a beeline to the toilet) while we were seated we should keep our belts buckled since we never knew when would encounter turbulence. Life is like that. You never know when the ripples are going to rise. That should have us doing two things: being proactive in our decisions, conscious of the consequences as much as we can be; and our reaction should always be one of humility. It’s not enough to be “so, so sorry.” We have to be broken, open, and dependent upon God. It’s the only way to ride the waves.
I made it to my destination that day. But my journey, is far from over.
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