How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
The commentary along with today’s psalm reading is from Eugene Peterson, and he writes about laments. He reports that 70% of the psalms are laments, and that laments are patently missing from modern day woes. True, we have societal, political, climate, pandemic, scandalous woes. True, there’s lots of reporting, gossiping, editorializing and studying woes. But there is a lack of lament. Not so in the psalms.
As a society, we are beginning to come out of this season of pandemic, and there is much rejoicing going on and being planned. I am wondering whether we should learn from the psalms and spend time lamenting. I don’t suggest this because I love feeling bad, or beating my hand on my chest, woe is me. But there is something honest and raw in acknowledging what’s been lost. It seems like as a culture, we could stand with some grieving.
To be clear, I don’t suggest this lamenting because I’m good at it – far from it. I’m one of the least likely people I know to wallow, or grieve or lament. But I suspect personally, I could stand with some lamenting too. My husband and I see a counselor because life in our home is kind of challenging sometimes, and we need to be rock solid. Our counselor said something interesting to us about trauma. We were talking about trauma informed counseling or ministry. She suggested we were living a trauma informed life. Whether it’s because we’ve gotten used to our household circumstances or because we’re numb, it mostly doesn’t feel traumatic. Her response was that we were handling things with grace because we didn’t pretend it wasn’t hard; we acknowledged the trauma our loved one is experiencing, and by proximity, us too. Side note, there are studies indicating that caregivers of people with schizophrenia have a significantly higher incidence of PTSD than the normal population. I can believe it!
Acknowledging the trauma is a great first step. But we haven’t ever really lamented, rending our hearts and not our clothes. I suspect that’s true with many of us. Even if we’ve acknowledged a loss, we try hard to put on a good show, that we’re all right. Maybe we, individually and collectively, should work on lamenting. We frequently get it right at the death of a loved one, whether it’s the week-long mourning of sitting shiva or a memorial. We give ourselves permission to lament and grieve. But we experience losses throughout our lives, that go unacknowledged. I know when I’ve got too much unacknowledged grief when sappy commercials make me weep. It’s time for a good ol’ lament.
This morning, I’m thinking about finding a few of the poignant lamenting psalms and committing them to memory, so I can pull them out for the big and little losses I experience. I’m also thinking about how to help create in a communal lament for what we’ve lost in these past 18 months.
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