Like you, I'm sure, I keep an eye on the current events around the world each day. The powerful power- hungry preying on those trusting, believing, hoping their best interest is at stake. The senseless, brutal slaughter of the innocent in the wake of evil.
None of it is new news. It's been happening since man was created. This doesn't comfort. The problem is that it's occurring on our watch, and we don't know what to do so far away. And if we're honest, we fear it will come near and disrupt our carefully crafted peaceful lives.
Growing up in a free country breeds entitlement. I've seen it rear its ugly head in my heart in living color in recent days. I confessed to my husband (and to God) just last week that I am a true American with all the prideful entitlements intact.
When authority overreaches and tries to take away a freedom, my back arches and my neck cranes and I say, "Well, we're not going to put up with that." If another country tried to invade and take us captive, well, we can't imagine that here in America. We simply can't accept that as a possible reality.
While scrolling through Instagram yesterday, I happened upon a post that I could have written - but not nearly as well - so I'm going to share it in the author's words.
"I love the season of Lent. I think this is a relatively new development; in previous years, I wonder if I was distracted - perhaps in some way rightfully - by the fasting, the "giving up" of something; the sugar, the social media, the soda.
These days, I am more grateful for the chance to lament, so relieved to be guaranteed a season in which I can sit and quietly grieve, in which I can acknowledge without reproach that things are not alright here. We are not okay.
What a relief it is to get to say that aloud, in a chorus alongside the rest of the global church. During our Ash Wednesday service last week, the priest looked at us gently, talking about his rended heart, about what he's witnessed the last two years. "We've behaved badly," he said, and oh, what a balm that truth was to my soul.
A quiet, somber, whispered alleluia for the acknowledgment that we have not handled things well. We are not okay. The world is not as it should be, and we continue to behave badly. But an alleluia, too, for the hope that there is Someone working diligently, powerfully to make things right, to turn our sins into seeds of something better.
Thanks be to God for lament, for repentance, for the chance to try again to make things right with each new day. Thanks be to God for Lent, which comes along right when I seem to need it the very most."*
I felt like crying after reading that honest assessment of the result of corporate sin. I think and talk enough about my personal individual sin, not daring to discuss yours - that's between you and God. But collective, communal, shared sin? Owning the togetherness of it? It's not really in our daily conversation.
Can any of us look back over the last few years and these current days and think we've nailed it? That we don't have something we got wrong to confess as sin? I admit I'm at the front of the line. These crises we've been assaulted with bring out the best and worst in us, for sure.
I have a saying I smirk out regularly that always draws a laugh: "It's not that I have to be right (all the time), it's just that I happen to be." What a joke indeed.
Every morning I sit in our little homemade library by an artificial fire and candle that provides the crackle. I read my Bible, I pray, I think, I practice stillness in God's presence. It's usually a comfortable, joyous time investing in my relationship with God. But since last week, I've purposefully paid more attention to the idea of lament. It's uncomfortable, unsettling, even painful.
Lament defined by the dictionary is: to feel or express grief, sorrow or regret; to mourn deeply for or over. That is what we need.
What a gift if you think about it. To feel and mourn deeply over the suffering and the sin far away from us as well as that in our own backyard. It really is a collective problem. We're all in this together. I do believe it's valuable to sit in it awhile and let lament do its work within.
Gospel means "good news". This was the good news of great joy the angels sang about in the shepherd fields. All that is needed for us to have a relationship with God is to confess and turn from our sin and put trust in Jesus.
This is what Lent and Easter are all about. Remembering Jesus' fulfilling God's eternal plan to include us in His family if we respond to Him in faith. Jesus' death isn't the whole story though, also His resurrection back to life - the life He is living today!
These days can be difficult to navigate, and the path seems to be getting darker as we gaze into the future. It is right to take the time to lament, to grieve, to feel sorrow and regret, to mourn deeply for our sins and the sins of others.
Lent gives us that annual invitation to lament. And while we do this, the days are marching toward a crescendo of wonder - the most exciting sacred holiday of them all - Easter morning. Look up, friend, it's coming and with it new life for all who believe.
*Annie B. Jones
One final thing, I have a little something for you today. Our family is endeavoring to compile an Easter playlist - each one contributing their faves. I started last week with this song by Andrew Peterson. I won't comment on it in too many words (even though I realllllly want to), just listen. He gets the process of awareness to lament to hope and we need this.
1 comment:
Great job Angela. You dig deep and make me see things in a deeper way. Thank you for your blog.
Joan
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