National Day of Mourning and Lament

Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has declared June 1 a National Day of Morning and Lament. I turn to psalms, poetry and prayer and offer some thoughts on all three as we observe this important day together. 

Lament is a familiar mode of psalm. It not only witnesses the brokenness of our lives and our screaming grief but is living proof of the relationship with our God who also grieves and weeps and mourns. Psalms of lament, used by Jesus, are poetic lyrics to accompany the disorientation which seeks God’s grace for reorientation. My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me? seems consonant with I Can’t Breathe. Psalmic lament is in our bones, it is written on our hearts. 

Closely aligned with psalms of lament are the many poetic expressions of grief which include passages of Scripture, often read at funerals, and creative works passed down through the ages. I include two of my favorite poems below, For Grief by John O’Donohue and In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver. In O’Donohue’s celtic inspired blessing I relate to “life becomes strange” and “sorrow will remain faithful to itself”. They speak to me of a kind of faithfulness in a divine life cycle which sustains. Or consider the Micah-like prescription of Oliver:  “To live in this world /you must be able/to do three things:/to love what is mortal;/to hold it/against your bones knowing/your own life depends on it;/and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it go.” Let it go is not the same as forgetting. There is deep memory in surrender.

Which leads to prayer: There are so many wonderful prayers in the BCP and so many have been written during this time of pandemic and racial terror. The prayer I offer here was recently written by a team of Lutherans and Episcopalians and will be used throughout Pentecost season in churches far and wide:

A Prayer for the Power of the Spirit Among the People of God

God of all power and love,
we give thanks for your unfailing presence
and the hope you provide in times of uncertainty and loss.
Send your Holy Spirit to enkindle in us your holy fire.
Revive us to live as Christ’s body in the world:
a people who pray, worship, learn,
break bread, share life, heal neighbors,
bear good news, seek justice, rest and grow in the Spirit.
Wherever and however we gather,
unite us in common prayer and send us in common mission,
that we and the whole creation might be restored and renewed,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In the end this day marks a time to recommit to our Baptismal Covenant and to realize our abilities to manifest the Spirit at work for our common good. May God receive our grief and lament. May Love prevail. 

For Grief by John O’Donohue

When you lose someone you love,

Your life becomes strange,

The ground beneath you becomes fragile,

Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;

And some dead echo drags your voice down

Where words have no confidence

Your heart has grown heavy with loss;

And though this loss has wounded others too,

No one knows what has been taken from you

When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret

For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;

Again inside the fullness of life,

Until the moment breaks

And you are thrown back

Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,

You are able to function well

Until in the middle of work or encounter,

Suddenly with no warning,

You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.

All you can depend on now is that

Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.

More than you, it knows its way

And will find the right time

To pull and pull the rope of grief

Until that coiled hill of tears

Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance

With the invisible form of your departed;

And when the work of grief is done,

The wound of loss will heal

And you will have learned

To wean your eyes

From that gap in the air

And be able to enter the hearth

In your soul where your loved one

Has awaited your return

All the time. 

In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver 

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.