Make Way For Lament

There’s things to be done, places to be and Lord knows I don’t want to upset others with my grief. The first words out of our mouths, when tears well in public, is some sort of apology. We mumble through a sorry and conjure up a justification of weariness. Well, of course we’re bloody weary! We’re grieving! 

Perhaps, if we don’t learn how to lament, we create in its place a deep cleft in the surface of our earth, a chasm that we cannot cross. The ground we once thought solid, the God we once knew cared, crumbles beneath the weight of our grief. The Creator we used to sit with tumbles down the ravine and we no longer have a place for the sacred things of life.

I wonder, if lament was allowed, if we let the pain of loss surround us in the brown dust earth, maybe we would see God differently in this space. Instead of an empty echo tumbling through darkness, maybe we would experience a divine intimacy, a closeness that could hold us in the loss.

I wonder if God is lament.

(Audio version available)