This Peculiar Age of Lamentation
On social media posts, I’ve been jolted at the appearance of “laughing emoji” responses to heartfelt lamentations surrounding current events on Facebook and LinkedIn. In context, these symbols are intended only to denigrate and humiliate. What’s wrong with us? We betray one another so readily when we think our faces are hidden.
We may regard life as far simpler centuries ago, but human beings are historically a tragic lot, prone to diseases of ignorance, poverty, and inclinations that can only be characterized as evil. We are also easily provoked, battle prone, and vulnerable. If it’s true, as psychologist Donald Winnicott stated, that “you can live without a mother and a father, but you can’t live in a world that doesn’t make sense to you,” then we’re all in deep trouble.
Personal gatherings with others strike a deeper, more consistent note. At a recent Chabad-hosted meeting, the Rabbi’s wife urged our small group to balance angst and repeated exposure to news of atrocities with private time and prayer. Light candles; offer charity; pray. I admit growing impatient with ideas of prayer until I realize I’m really just tangling with semantics. We all need to locate the peace within ourselves and use it as a source of energy, of strength – and I think lamentation as a response is entirely called for, regardless of the direction we send our cries.
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The biblical book of Lamentations is long-form poetry, the spiritual gift of Jeremiah, also referred to as “the weeping prophet.” Lamentations isn’t a particularly familiar book to Christians, despite its inclusion within the scriptures of the Judeo-Christian canon. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate Jeremiah’s depiction of the destruction of his beloved city, a place he interestingly refers to in feminine terms: as widow, wife, mother. “She wept sore in the night…” Later, the city itself “speaks.” Still, it’s the humans who order it all to tell the story, to have it make sense. Herein lies the responsibility: we humans.
Here also is a depth of sorrow over more than the defining aspects of one’s environment – the way things are—but also of aspects one’s own self. The essence of who I am. It’s less prayer than protest, aimed at rousing God and awakening the world to a plight beyond understanding or tolerance. Jeremiah is lamenting as would a woman mourning a child, the issue of her own body.
Anger seeks witness, and this is where communal lamentations come in. The only survival, the only meaning is found in acts of love and concern that affirm our dignity. That is a gift we can only offer one another. And, as the poet Whitman notes, we each contain multitudes – we ourselves are the cities we want so desperately to save. Our sense of separateness is illusory.
Theologically, believers will attribute human dignity to Divine provenance. But unbelievers too rely on the respectful regard of others, if not love, for survival. Either way, we need hope, and for me this is what the poet Jeremiah is seeking to recover. Cynics tell us we’re beyond hope, but the poet suggests the contrary.
Lamentations demonstrates the purpose and power of directing angry questions into the Mystery, laying out our grievances, asking for help, and choosing to trust. Only love that has its source in one’s own center can find a way home again on the crumbling ground of our earth-bound being. This applies to non-believers and believers alike.
We all believe in something, and if that something offers no path to wholeness, no way to offer solace to the self or to grief-stricken others, it’s reasonable to ask why.
“But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you… and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”