Practicing Lament

I’m not sure how to begin today. 

My soul is weary. 

I am full of grief. 

The lack of peace in the world feels daunting. 

We seem to have forgotten how to take care of each other.

Holy Spirit, help us. 

As I was trying to figure out what to write about this week,  I was reminded of the importance of the practice of lament. It’s been a few years since I’ve written much about it, and if I’m honest, it is a practice that still feels pretty new to me.

In the early days of the pandemic, I recall reading an article by NT Wright, where I encountered the language of lament, and it was as if my soul took a deep breath for the first time in weeks. The article gave me language for the deep stirring within me that I hadn’t known how to name.

I wanted to share snippets from that article with you, but when I was looking for it, I came across a video on lament that NT Wright Online created in February of this year.

Rather than trying to restate Wright’s words, I want to invite you to listen to them for yourself. The video is just 10 minutes, and I think it will be an encouragement to you today. If you have been weary or uncertain of how to engage in what is happening around you, if you aren’t sure how to pray or process your grief because the news from around the globe is too much, or if you are asking why is this happening and there doesn’t seem to be any answers then I hope this will help you to breathe more deeply and to know God is with you in all of it.

As Wright says, “Lament, therefore, turns out to be a very specific and focused aspect of Christian vocation. That Christians are called, precisely in being people of lament, to be the people who are in prayer at the place where the world is in pain, in order that God, the Holy Spirit, may be there at the place where the world is in pain.”

Let it be so. Amen. 

~  Melissa