Learning to Lament

Monday Missive #43

A Poem: Teach Me to Lament

Teach me to lament;
Rather than complain,
About the weather,
My aches and pains,
Things unpleasant,
Mere inconveniences.
Teach me to lament,
Over families lost,
Homes destroyed,
Humans sold,
War,
Slavery,
Racism,
Poverty,
Famine.
What should not be,
But is!
Real,
Raw,
Repugnant.
Teach me lament,
Over our world broken.
Not complain about
My little difficulties.

A Prayer: Listen to My Heart

Father, listen the words of my heart,
That go beyond my mind.
I think I know what to pray,
But I do not.
I give to you what is going on
In my life,
In the lives of those I love,
In the world;
But they do not reach my heart.
I don’t know how to pray that deeply,
I don’t know how to voice the unvoicable.
So, I live in the promise of
Your Spirit knowing my heart,
Even more than I do,
Lifting up its depths to you.
Father, listen beyond my words
And hear my heart.

A Passage: For Reflection

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” 
(Romans 8:26 NRSV).