Power of Lament

Day of the Dead, 2023

This past week, I attended a Zoom gathering of Episcopal clergy in the Diocese of New York asking how shall we speak to the unfathomable horror of bloodshed and war between Israel and Hamas?

Our session was led by the Reverend Canon Sarah Snyder, who has served as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Canon for Reconciliation and works in places of conflict around the world, including Israel and Gaza.

All of us as spiritual leaders shared our common, impossible struggle.   What one can possibly say? How to speak to this horror? With hopelessness? Say nothing? With fear for creating further polarization? Trivalizing it by speaking at all? And there are so many voices already; we just add to the cacophonous din of confusion and division?

Yet we must speak, witness to what is so.

The sacred tradition of lament, as spoken through the Psalms, came alive in our session. The Psalms express collective and individual lament towards & against God for the injustice in the world.

Lament is a guttural response of protest.
Lament is a fist shake that it be put right.
Lament is a visceral, heartbreaking cry.

We were invited to write our own lament in the tradition of the Psalms.
I share the one I wrote above, at the top.

I invite, no, perhaps, I implore you
to compose/write your own lament.
Share them with me by responding to this email.
With your permission, named or anonymously,
I will share them in the next newsletter as we all lament together. 

If you would like to be informed by the Psalms as you craft your lament,  here is an example: Psalm 22

May we lament.
May the whole world wail together. 
May we all be one in an outpouring of lamentation.