the vulnerability of lament

i was terrible about blogging my way through practicum last quarter, even though i wanted to share my journey through lament.

the truth of the matter is that i hit a point where sitting in the process of lament was way too hard. actually, i think it was more the case that the process of lament was doing its job, and the very act of lamenting led me to joy. but this is my effort to debrief the experience.

i went into the experience knowing full well that lament is not something that we do well or often. it occurred to me pretty early on that i think part of the reason why lament is so difficult is because it requires us to be vulnerable. it requires us to be honest with ourselves, and it requires us to be honest with the One we believe has somehow wronged us. when the poet of Lamentations cries out to God, he is incredibly detailed about the hurts and the wrongs his people have experienced, as well as the sin they have committed. the poet is also incredibly direct with God about how God has done them wrong, shares these intimate hurts with God, all in the midst of God's silence. and the poet doesn't get an immediate response.

so, what choice did i have but to ask God to help me to be vulnerable as i discovered lament. i asked God to take me to those deepest places of myself that needed to be brought to the surface, to be grieved, and to eventually be let go of. there was plenty of stuff to keep me occupied, most of which had to do with church, but there was one thing that came up that i wasn't anticipating having to deal with at this point in time.

it became apparent that it was time to lament my singleness - or my lack of a significant other. this still feels strange to say.

for at least a year or so, i have had this feeling (in my gut, my heart, my soul, wherever you want to place it) that perhaps the life i had always simply expected is not the life i am meant to live.

there was a time during my angsty teenage years when i would have said i had no desire to get married or have kids. but that was just a phase. deep down, i always assumed i would get married young and have a kid or two by the time i reached the aged of 27.

alas, here i am sans children and a husband. not only that, but when i am truly honest with myself about what i see in my future, i don't see those things. i am not even sure i still hope for those things.

then there's the fact that our culture emphasizes marriage and family in a way that is incredibly ostracizing to older single people. the older you get and the longer you remain unmarried, the weirder you are and the less value you have. the church is no exception to this. at the same time, when i attempt to share these sorts of thoughts with friends, they tend to be incredibly dismissive. when i mention that i'm not sure if i will ever get married, people are really quick to respond with something like "you just haven't met the right guy," or "it's not the right time." these things may or may not be true, but statements like these give me permission to tighten my grip ever so slightly, instead of holding these things loosely and giving them to God, and they don't honor where i feel God has me now.

the hard and fast truth is that at this point in time, i can't imagine myself getting married.

i realized i had to lament this fact for a few reasons. first, i am an extroverted person. i don't enjoy being alone. i would never actively choose to live alone. and yet, if i don't get married, odds are most of my friends around me will, and i will run out of roommates. second, i love children, and i would love to be a mom. i love watching them grow and learn, and i love what they have to teach me. there are certainly ways to have children without being married, but ideally, i would have a partner for parenting. third, and i hate that this is a concern of mine, but the adventures that i want to have around the world are made easier with a partner, particularly one who is a man. though it is not impossible to do the kind of work i want to do on my own, i would feel safer (and probably more sane) with someone by my side.

i am lamenting singleness because when you take marriage out of the equation, each of these concerns becomes that much more scary. figuring out the details of how my life will work in each of these areas without being married gets more difficult.

so here i am, being honest with myself about where i am at. this is as far as i have gotten in the process. i anticipate many more conversations with God about what this actually means, many more moments of watching sappy movies when i think to myself that i am being too hasty, and perhaps some tears shed. but this is the direction i feel God moving me for now...to let the idea of marriage and a family go. that's not to say God wont change my mind later in life, but all i can do is be faithful in the present.

on the bright side, i have no shortage of family in my life. my family of origin and my family of choice are both a means of grace for me. they continue to remind me that family...and love...is bigger than we give it credit for.

perpetual tension

i am so exhausted. but i feel more full than i have in a really long time. here's what i mean. i have spent much of the last one-two years feeling a sense of distance from God, more specifically from the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. i have felt sustained, held up somehow in this absence, by the intellectual pursuit of God and by participation in the liturgical life of my church. and this has been good. i recognize the value and the lesson that came along with experiencing that time of life. what has changed in the last few weeks is that this sense of presence has returned. i know that God never left me, and i understood and could see that God was working in my life despite what i felt. but something is different now. i can feel the Holy Spirit drawing near. i feel more than sustained, i feel full. perhaps it is the result of the integration of all that i have been learning in this first year of seminary. perhaps it is the attention i have paid to the practice of grieving in the last six months. perhaps i am beginning to cultivate a stronger sensitivity to the movement of the Spirit. regardless of the cause, i am growing as a disciple of Jesus and pressing into those places that i feel movement. exhaustion has set in, though. i will put most of the blame on the brief but meaningful trip to Philadelphia last week, the homework overload that preceded it, and the theological reflection that inevitably has followed it. this trip is a large part of why i feel full, but i walked away from that experience with a profound sense of simultaneous joy and grief. i have also been reflecting on the work God has been doing in my life, and i have realized something. it is not just today, in response to this conference, that i am sitting in the tension of joy and grief. this is a theme that has categorized my existence, the life of my faith, for years. learning to live in this place of tension - particularly between joy and grief - has been my task more times that i can count. i live perpetually in a state of balancing on a tightrope. holding in my hands both grief and hope. sometimes i sway one way or the other, but somehow i manage to never lose a grip on either. this is the primary aspect of my character that has been developing during this time: the ability to hold these things together. i am coming to see that the ability to maintain this tension is what characterizes my involvement with my church as well as what characterizes the kind of therapist that i want to be. this is why i am exhausted. my hands are as full of grief and joy as my heart is full of the Spirit. not only am i holding both of these things, but i am feeling both of these things...tremendously and intensely. i am allowing myself to feel the fullness of the grief that i carry. grief for things that are changing, for relationships that have been lost, for letting go of future expectations, for things beyond my control, for the brokenness that plagues each of us. and i am allowing myself to feel the fullness of the joy that i carry. joy for the places that i see hope in the midst of this grief, for the new and deepening friendships that i am building, for the way i see God forming the hearts and lives of those around me, and for the things that i am proud to be a part of. and while i am exhausted, i can't help but also desire to push further. to continue to ruminate on these things, to continue to reflect on what God is teaching me, to continue to engage my mind in the topics that i love, to continue to enjoy the deep and encouraging relationships that God has built up around me, to continue to grieve and hope. This is what God is doing in me.

The State of Our Souls

Below is a brief poem that I composed with reference to my current study of Lamentations as well as reflecting on the state of our society and relationships in light of current tragedies. Please don't steal my work.     The State of Our Souls We live in a world that        makes us numb        and strikes us dumb In the face of unbelievable tragedy Our first reaction is to judge        to place blame        and to shame Rather than join hands and cry We have forgotten what it means        to belong        and to whom And why it matters what we say and do Because we live in a world that divides        right down party lines        and by nation and tribe All the way down to our homes and our souls

the big questions

i started my journey into lamentations this week. first, i read some background on the book, and then i read through the book in one go, making some initial observations. as i begin this journey, i want to start by thinking about what i want to get out of this. what are some of the big questions that i want answers to? what questions came up in my first reading of the book? etc. so, here are some questions: - what is lament? - why is lament important? - what does the book of lamentations (and lament itself) mean for being a follower of Christ? - what does this book teach me about the character of God? - what does this book teach me about how i relate to God? - what is the balance between lament and hope? is there any balance? - what is the role of judgment and restoration in the life of the chosen? - what does lamentations teach Christians about Jesus?   here we go.

lament

duh. it seems like i should have seen this coming, that i could have anticipated this point in my journey if i was only paying better attention. two years ago i took a class on the prophets and was confronted with the idea of lament. and i began to think about grief, mourning, letting go...and how horrible we tend to be at it. lament is the practice of the prophet. prophecy, i learned as an intern, is a gift and a call that i have on my life...so there's that. if you read through the prophets in the Bible, lament is a very clear theme. the prophets lament at the state of the sin of Israel, they lament over the exile and broken relationship with God. this is not the sole job of the prophet, other key elements include warning of judgment and proclaiming hope. lament is just a chapter in the story. but it is an important chapter, especially when you consider the so very many things we have in our lives to grieve over. it is a chapter that we really cannot afford to skip over. so...a couple weeks ago i was on the women's retreat that my church hosted (planned, organized and executed via a grassroots movement that makes me proud to call this church home). we talked about places where we have experienced  great abiding, joy and fruitfulness. what comes to mind for me is UPC. i have been a member for 3 years and attending for almost 5, and it is in this place that i have found a home, a community, deep and sustaining relationships, opportunity to participate in the life of the church and serve in ministry in many capacities. i think of the mission trips i have been on to kenya, new orleans and haiti. i think of all the service projects i helped organize for convergence. i think of the community groups that i participated in launching. i think of the year i spent interning. i think of the leaders and friends along the way who have shaped the person that i am now, in seminary and graduate school, following a bigger call on my life. i think back on these things and i feel great joy. then we were asked to reflect on a place where we feel a sense of grief, barrenness, and exile. lo and behold (i was just as shocked as you will be in reading this) this place is also UPC for me. because today at UPC, amidst a whirlwind of change in the last couple years, i don't have a deep and sustaining community of relationships. many of my friends have left the church because convergence and the sunday service we participated in have ended and there just isn't the opportunity for fellowship anymore. there is the very real possibility of walking into church on a sunday and not seeing anyone i know. the leaders who knew me and who were invested in my growth have all moved on to pursue other calls. i am not serving or participating in any capacity beyond stephen ministry training, which is great but is not your traditional sort of ministry. to sum: my place of deep abiding joy and fruitfulness has become for me a place of exilic despair and barrenness. and there is much to lament. my dear friend nicki, in response to my sharing this revelation with her, said that this sounded a lot like the Israelites who, during the Babylonian exile, were stuck in Jerusalem. see, not all of the Israelites were cast out to Babylon during the exile, as we tend to think. in actuality, there were many who were left in Jerusalem and the rest of Judah, left to look at the wreckage of their former idyllic life, the ruins of the temple, everyday reminders of just how far they fell. BAM! nicki, what a shot to the heart, a word from the Lord. since then, i have had a desire to learn more, to explore this biblically and to find something in Scripture that i can identify with. i wondered...was there Scripture about the exile from the perspective of Jews in Jerusalem? what? there is? turns out, lamentations is the place to turn. so i have decided that i am going to study lamentations. i'm going to read commentaries, articles, dictionaries, what have you, and i'm going to learn about Israel's lament. because i think lament is important. lament is also the space into which we enter on good friday. when Jesus is killed, crucified, when he assumes our death as his own, we lament. it is important to sit in this space, because without good friday, without lament, there is no glory of the resurrection, no hope of easter. to be sure, the lament is not the final word, but it is part of the experience. lamentations. i'm going to read it, and read it well. and i'm going to share some of my thoughts here. interaction is welcome, we can't do this alone.