Tag Archives: Grief

Chapter-a-Day

Momento Mori

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The Lord said to Moses, “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”
Numbers 31:1 (NIV)

Along my life journey, I’ve experienced walking along side friends and loved ones who received tragic diagnoses. My mother had both auto-immune hepatitis and Alzheimer’s, both of them incurable and ultimately fatal. My father lives with Multiple Myeloma. It’s understandably unnerving to discover that this human body has fallen prey to an incurable disease that will cut one’s life shorter than expected and lead to death.

In walking along side individuals facing this tragic reality, I’ve found it fascinating to observe their attitudes and actions. It’s always a bit different, and I’ve come to understand that every individual has to find their own way through the experience. Not surprisingly, I commonly observe the stages of grief as individuals grapple with their difficult reality: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I have also observed individuals getting stuck in one or more of those stages seemingly incapable of progressing to the place of acceptance. In other individuals, I’ve observed a gracious and spiritually mature embrace of the inevitable that I’ve admired and respected.

Today’s chapter begins with such a death sentence. God’s man, Moses, is told that he’s going to die. God has just one more task for Mo to carry out. Mo is tasked with leading God’s vengeance against the Midianites who had conscripted the seer Balaam to curse the Hebrews and then conspired to seduce and spiritually corrupt the Hebrew men into immorality and pagan worship.

Make no mistake, it’s a thorny chapter that caused me to wrestle with God in my meditations. Nevertheless, I kept coming back to that first verse. Moses’ death sentence.

What struck me is that Moses quickly and faithfully carries out the task God gives him the way he has faithfully carried out God’s instructions for decades. There’s no hint of grief, anger, bargaining, or depression. Moses was not like the depressed prophet Elijah who ran to Mount Sinai and wallowed in self-pity. Moses carries on. He is obedient. He does what he’s always done.

In walking with loved ones on their journey through terminal diagnoses and the road that follows, I’ve come to embrace the truth that every human being has a terminal diagnosis from the day we are born. We live in a fallen world under the curse of death. I am going to die. Medical science tells us that physical and mental development ends in our mid-twenties. After that, humans can only work to maintain optimal health for our age, but the body continues to age and that aging process is a slow descent toward a physical death no one escapes.

I have a bracelet I wear. Actually, it’s a Roman Catholic rosary, though I’m obviously not Catholic. The rosary, however, was crafted with a motif rooted in a medieval school of thought called Momento Mori that was adopted by monks and crusader knights alike.

Momento Mori is Latin and it translates “Remember your death” or more aptly “Remember you’re going to die.” It was a school of Christian thought in which individuals constantly kept the death sentence we all live under at the front of our conscious thought rather than stuffing it back in the recesses of cognitive denial. The notion of Momento Mori was that being daily reminded of, and meditating on, my mortality, it will motivate me to see this day differently, react differently, relate differently, and live differently. Momento Mori is working through the stages of grief and coming to acceptance of my impending death long before a doctor walks into the room and tells me I have cancer.

In the quiet this morning, I observe that Moses seems to have embraced the spirit of Momento Mori. Mo has humbly been obedient, despite being flawed and making tragic mistakes, ever since God appeared to him in the burning bush and announced He had a job. It isn’t recorded that he was rattled by the pronouncement that death will quickly follow this next task. He simply carries out the task.

Today is day 21,684 of my earthly journey. While it is probable that I will wake up to day 21,685 tomorrow morning, it is not guaranteed.

May I humbly live out this day faithfully following Jesus and being obedient to those things to which God has called me.

Momento Mori.

For anyone interested, the bracelet I reference, also pictured in today’s featured photo can be purchased from Crux Invicta.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

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A bracelet designed with a 'Momento Mori' motif, symbolizing the reminder of mortality, possibly displayed alongside a Bible or spiritual context.
Chapter-a-Day, Uncategorized

Watershed Moment

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Watershed Moment (CaD Jhn 11) – Wayfarer

“But Rabbi,” they said, “a short while ago the Jews there tried to stone you, and yet you are going back?”
John 11:8 (NIV)

Certain movie scenes stand out in my memory because of the way the entire storyline of a movie hinges on that one moment. For example, in The Godfather, it is Michael’s late-night visit to the hospital to find his father alone. In the darkness, he whispers to his father, “It’s okay. I’m with you now.” From that point on, the son who wanted nothing to do with his father’s business will be on a trajectory to become the very thing he once despised.

Today’s chapter contains a similar dramatic and pivotal episode in Jesus’ story. This is the seventh and final miraculous “sign” that John chooses to share before shifting to Jesus’ fateful and final days. It is not only the most dramatic of the seven because of the miracle itself, but because the event pushes Jesus’ enemies into a conspiracy to commit murder and rid themselves of Jesus once-and-for-all.

The conflict between Jesus and the chief priests in Jerusalem was already at a boiling point. Jesus had escaped attempts to arrest Him and stone Him the last time He had been in Jerusalem. Because of this, He left the region altogether. But now Jesus gets word that His good friend, Lazarus is gravely ill. Lazarus and his sisters live in Bethany, a stone’s throw from Jerusalem and the Chief Priests.

By the time Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been lying in the grave for four days. Mourners from Jerusalem had gathered to comfort the family. There is a big crowd on hand.

Part of the drama of the moment for me is in John’s careful crafting of the human emotion of the moment. He emphasizes Jesus’ love for Lazarus and his sisters. There’s the wailing and lamenting of the friends gathered with the sisters at the tomb. John also records Jesus’ own emotions with the simple declaration “Jesus wept.” And then, amid the grief and despair, Jesus orders the stone rolled away and loudly commands Lazarus to exit the grave.

The raising of Lazarus from the dead was a watershed moment on multiple levels. The crowd of witnesses and the public display ensured that word would spread like wildfire. The proximity to Jerusalem ensured that word would quickly reach Jesus’ enemies. With this particular sign, Jesus also foreshadows the impending end of His own earthly journey through death to resurrection. Lazarus, meanwhile, would be a living witness to Jesus’ miraculous power, leading Jesus’ enemies to conspire to send him back to the grave as well.

As I meditated on this dramatic scene in the quiet this morning, it once again seemed clear to me that Jesus was not a victim of circumstance. He was very clearly driving the action. Jesus had already declared how His earthly journey would end. With the raising of Lazarus, He was putting the wheels into motion that would lead right where He always knew things would end up.

Along my own earthly journey as a disciple of Jesus, I have been able to look back on my journey and see how certain watershed moments in my story were instrumental in driving the action. Even difficult and hard times have resulted in spiritual growth, deeper levels of maturity, and they have led to places where I’ve experienced life in greater and more fulfilling ways.

The story of Lazarus is really a microcosm of the Great Story itself. Death leads to new life just as winter leads to spring. Or, as David penned in his lyrics of Psalm 30, weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

I find this a good reminder for the start of a new work week. Just as Jesus shared with Lazarus’ sisters, if I believe Jesus truly the Resurrection and the Life, I am assured that the darkest of earthly circumstances eventually end in light, the saddest of times ultimately give way to joy, and even death itself is simply a gateway to new life.

I’m back on Facebook for those who liked to read my chapter-a-day posts there! Facebook refuses to give me access to my old, hacked account, but I have started a new account. Please search for me on Facebook and friend me. If Facebook won’t let you friend me, please go to my Facebook profile and “Message” me, which should then allow me to friend you. Cheers! -Tom

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Jury Box Pondering

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“Remember that you molded me like clay.
    Will you now turn me to dust again?”
Job 10:9 (NIV)

Many years ago, I taught a class on creativity that was based largely on The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. The lessons and exercises in The Artist’s Way were instrumental in my own journey. God used them to bear the fruits of insight, understanding, and spiritual healing in me. In my class, I simply shared them and facilitated their work in others. I was amazed how the creative process allowed some individuals to express, perhaps for the very first time in their lives, traumatic events that had been a giant, suppressed, spiritual block for many, many years.

I have known individuals along my life journey who have had horrid experiences in life whether it was being the victim of a human perpetrator or the victim of an accident or natural disaster. I have observed many different ways in which people cope (or don’t cope) with the suffering. I have heard many different voices work through the stages of grief, or sometimes spiral into a perpetual cycle of despair.

In the previous chapter, Job dreams of a courtroom drama in which he has the opportunity of taking God to court where he can put the Almighty on the stand and make God defend the suffering that Job accuses God of inflicting on him. In today’s chapter, Job continues to play out his mock trial before his three friends. He questions the heavenly defendant, before concluding, in despair, that whether he was guilty or innocent, God appears not to care.

I pondered Job’s prosecution of God this morning as if I was a juror in his improvisational courtroom play.

I don’t fault Job for his anger. He’s walking through the stages of grief like any other human being. But in his line of questioning, I noticed that Job has made some prosecutorial assumptions.

First, Job is assuming that God alone is the perpetrator of his earthly suffering. This is nothing new. We do that to this day. When a branch of my tree fell on the neighbor’s house and went through their roof the insurance company called it an “act of God.”

God gets blamed for a lot of things, but the Great Story (and the Job story) make it clear that the force of evil is also at play in this fallen world. We could spin into a philosophical discussion, of course, but for now I simply acknowledge that it was Satan who accused Job and was the perpetrator of his suffering. I find it ironic that after Satan afflicts Job he disappears in the story. I believe this to be one of evil’s common tactics, to perpetrate suffering and then pin the blame on God.

Job then asks God an interesting question:

“Remember that you molded me like clay.
    Will you now turn me to dust again?”

It’s ironic because it points directly back to the Garden of Eden. After Adam and Eve sin, God explains the consequences of their sin. They will exit the Garden and live in a fallen world where sin holds sway, evil has dominion, and earthly life ends in death:

“By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.”

In accusing God of turning him into dust again, Job ignores the fact that death, suffering, and the consequences of sin has been humanity’s lot since Adam. Job lives on the same earth I do, in which evil exists and leaves innocent victims in its wake as it pursues power, greed, lust, and pride without regard to the pain, chaos, and death that naturally results. We also live in a fallen world in which rivers flood, hurricanes blow, volcanos explode, earthquakes rock, tornadoes spin, and tree limbs fall through your neighbor’s roof.

In the quiet this morning, I continue to feel for Job’s questions, his pain, the anger he feels in the seeming inequities of his experience. He had been living a pretty blessed existence that fit neatly into the box of his simple, contractual “Santa Clause” theology: “Do good and God blesses you. Do bad and God punishes you.” But my own life journey reveals that to be incongruent with what the Great Story actually reveals and what we experience on this earth.

In the midst of my own (relatively inconsequential) suffering along the way, I’ve had to do my own work through the stages of grief. One of the things that I discovered was that blaming of God for my suffering was actually denial of what God clearly reveals as the realities of life in a fallen, sinful world.

Sometimes you do nothing but good, and they crucify you for it.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Eli and the Santa Clause

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Eli and the Santa Clause (CaD Job 4) – Wayfarer

But now trouble comes to you, and you are discouraged;
    it strikes you, and you are dismayed.
Should not your piety be your confidence
    and your blameless ways your hope?
Job 4:5-6 (NIV)

Along my life journey, I have noticed that humanity has a certain base belief that is woven into the fabric of our DNA. We inherently believe that doing good is a good thing and doing bad is a bad thing. Pardon me for borrowing from a Hollywood movie title, but I often think of this as “The Santa Clause” because in Santa we boil it down to its pure form and feed it to our children. If you’re naughty you get coal in your stocking. If you’re good you get presents, or as comedian David Sedaris puts it, “if you’re good and live in America, you pretty much get whatever it is you want.”

As an adult, I’ve observed that the Santa Clause often gets hard-wired within us. If we live right and do good things then life should be filled with goodness and blessing. If we are selfish and a bad person then certainly we will reap the consequences of our self-centeredness and bad actions.

In today’s chapter, we hear from Eli, the first of Job’s three friends who have been sitting with him and contemplating the terrible suffering Job is experiencing. Eli begins and jumps right into Santa Clause world view. He recounts how Job, in his goodness, has encouraged and counseled others in their troubles, so Job should take a bit of his own advice not that he’s on the other side of the troubles. Cheer up!

Eli then recounts his observations of the Santa Clause principle at work. God blesses the upright and doesn’t kill them, while evil doers reap trouble and God wipes them out. As I read, I couldn’t help but wonder if Eli is trying to say: “You’re a good guy. God won’t let you die” while the subtext of his words is: “People don’t suffer like this unless they brought it on themselves.“

After this, Eli goes into the classic “I had a dream about you,” which I consider a variation of “God told me to tell you.” Dreams, visions, and words from the Spirit-realm carry an air of authority from beyond. The messenger isn’t responsible. Eli isn’t source. He is simply retelling what the “hushed voice” in his dream told him. I have written before about my thoughts on dealing with “God told me to tell you” statements. It’s not that I don’t believe in the prophetic, because I certainly do. I have a number of experiences with the prophetic that have been mind-blowing. I have also had experiences with those playing fast and loose with the “God told me” card. I have always found that a certain wisdom, discernment, and openness is required.

Today’s chapter are just the first half of Eli’s words for Job. Tomorrow’s chapter will contain the second half. Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel that he’s wading in the shallow end. Along my own life journey there have been stretches and experiences in which a Hallmark card poetry and “buck up li’l camper” platitudes feel like salt being rubbed into my wounds. While there is truth in the Santa Clause view of life (that’s why we use it with children), it certainly falls far short of addressing the messy circumstances we experience along this life journey.

In the quiet this morning, I can’t point the finger at Eli without three fingers pointing back at me. I am mindful of my own terrible Eli-like attempts at encouragement to others over the years. I’m embarrassed by some of the silly, shallow, and unhelpful things I know that I’ve said to people in the worst moments of their lives. The Sage of Ecclesiastes wrote that there is a time to speak and a time to be silent. The further I get in on this earthly journey, the more I embrace the latter. I wonder sometimes if simple, loving presence with open ears, an open heart, and a willing spirit aren’t the best thing for those suffering like Job. There are moments when keeping my mouth shut might just be the most gracious thing I do for others.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“Good Luck Charm” Religion

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"Good Luck Charm" Religion (CaD Jer 8) – Wayfarer

“How can you say, ‘We are wise,
    for we have the law of the Lord,’
when actually the lying pen of the scribes
    has handled it falsely?”
Jeremiah 8:8 (NIV)

A few years ago, I was working with a group of leaders who were tasked with teaching the book of 1 Corinthians to a larger gathering of Jesus’ followers. Before we began, I made a copy of the text without any of the chapter or verse numbers listed. I changed the type face to a font that resembled actual handwriting and printed it and handed it out. I encouraged the team to put themselves in the sandals of a leader of the Jesus followers in ancient Corinth and to read the words as they were originally intended: as a personal letter from their friend Paul. It was a transformative exercise for us.

One of the things that I have to always remember on this chapter-a-day journey is that the chapter and verse designations were not part of the original writings for centuries. Manuscripts as early as the 4th century AD contain some evidence of text being divided into chapters, but it wasn’t until the 12th century that Steven Langton added the chapter divisions and it wasn’t until 1551 that a man named Robert Estienne added the verse definitions. In 1560, the first translation of the entire Great Story referred to as the Geneva Bible, employed chapters and verses throughout. They’ve been used ever since.

Chapters and verses are an essential method for study, referencing, and cross-referencing. That’s why they remain. However, in my forty-plus years of studying, I’ve found that they can also hinder my reading, understanding, and interpretation. Chapters and verses gain individual attention apart from the context of the whole in which they were intended when written. Individual verses get pulled out of context. In other cases, like today’s chapter, the entire chapter is merely a piece of a larger message. I can easily read and contemplate just today’s chapter alone without connecting it to the chapters before and after into which they fit.

In today’s chapter, I noticed that the Hebrew people of Jeremiah’s day were saying, “We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord.” Something clicked and I remembered something I read in yesterday’s chapter: “Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord!” Both chapters are really part of one message or series of messages to be read together as a unit.

Taken together, I realize that there’s a theme in Jerry’s message that I would never see if I confine myself to each individual chapter and don’t consider them together as a whole. The Hebrew people of Jeremiah’s day had misplaced their trust. They trusted in Solomon’s Temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. They trusted in the “Law of the Lord” which had recently been rediscovered and made known to them. They had not, however, placed their trust in the God who gave them the Law, nor the God who inspired the building of the temple. They were treating the temple and the Law the same way they treated the other gods who they had worshipped, sometimes within the temple they were worshipping. The temple and the Law were basically good luck charms like all the other stars, idols, and pagan images they worshipped along with them.

In the quiet this morning, I thought about people whom I’ve met and known along my life journey whom I’ve observed treating their religion and their local church building, much like the people Jerry is addressing in his message, as good luck charms. When trouble comes in life (and trouble always comes in life – God even says so) I have observed their shock and anger. I have heard them express rage at God for not warding off their troubles and making their lives free of difficulty, pain, or sorrow. But God never promised that.

In fact, when Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit of their own free will, God said specifically that the consequences would include pain and conflict, sweat and toil, along with death and grief on our earthly journeys. Going to church and dressing my life up in religious traditions does not save me from any of those earthly realities. However, a trusting relationship with God gives me what I need to endure troubles in such a way that qualities like faith and perseverance, peace and maturity, along with joy and hope hone me to become more like Jesus, who endured more undeserved trouble than I could ever imagine and did so on my behalf.

Once again, a Bob Dylan lyric came to mind as I pondered these things this morning:

Trouble in the city, trouble in the farm
You got your rabbit’s foot, you got your good-luck charm
But they can’t help you none when there’s trouble…

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

Between Quiet and Noise

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Between Quiet and Noise (CaD Matt 14) – Wayfarer

After [Jesus] had dismissed [the crowd], he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone…
Matthew 14:23 (NIV)

I remember seeing a news story many years ago that talked about a special breed of audiophiles who try to get high-definition recordings of pure nature sounds. They’re the ones who record the sounds that end up on our noise machines or sound effect apps that help us sleep at night. This particular news story was about the fact that their job is getting increasingly harder. The problem is that the noise of civilization is crowding in everywhere, making it difficult to find the pure sounds of creation without planes, trains, automobiles, and cells phones interrupting.

Caught between the quiet and the noise of life. Now there’s a metaphor that resonates with me.

Today’s chapter begins with the unjust and tragic execution of John the Baptist, who was killed because a spoiled, drunken, frat-boy king got turned on watching his niece/step-daughter shake her booty at his high society soiree. Promising to grant her any wish, her mother prompted her to ask for John’s head on a platter.

John’s disciples bury the body and immediately find Jesus to tell him the news. I find it so easy to dehumanize Jesus as I read and reread the stories. Today, I found myself imagining Jesus’ reaction to the news. John was Jesus’ cousin, born within a few months of one another. Their mothers experienced miraculous conceptions and pregnancies together. They knew one another since they were kids. Our daughters Taylor and Madison each have a cousin born within months of one another. I’ve witnessed the special bond they continue to have. That was Jesus and John. Just a few chapters ago, Jesus said of his cousin, “There is no one greater than John!”

When Jesus hears the news, Matthew records that He immediately got in a boat and withdrew to a solitary place. How human. Being fully human, Jesus is going to grieve in all of the emotional stages of human grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, then acceptance. He wants to be alone.

In the quiet privacy of a boat, Jesus seeks an equally quiet, solitary place out in nature to be alone, to grieve. But He can’t escape the din of civilization:

Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns.

By the time Jesus lands onshore in a solitary place, the crowd is already assembled. He can’t escape.

I felt that tension this morning as I read about Jesus healing the sick, working miracles, and feeding the thousands. Inside, He’s grieving. Inside, He’s tired. Inside, He just wants to be left alone.

The need to be alone in the quiet leads Jesus to send the disciples on ahead in the boat. Jesus dismisses the crowd.

After Jesus had dismissed the crowd, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.

In the quiet this morning, I found myself identifying with the tension that Jesus must have felt at that moment. I feel the pull to quiet. I need to withdraw, to feel, to ponder, to pray, to rest, to sit in the silence. But, life doesn’t stop. The task list that’s never empty, the needs of loved ones, the deadlines at work, the commitments I’ve made, the friends’ requests, the responsibilities of everyday life… every time I withdraw to a solitary place, I find them all noisily waiting for me when I arrive.

Jesus had compassion. Jesus took care of the crowds, but He didn’t give up on His need for quiet. If anything, the crowds only intensified His determination to make it happen. No crowds, no disciples even.

“Hey! Everyone? Leave me.”

Along this life journey, I’ve learned that quiet time is necessary. I may not always succeed in shutting out the world and finding the quiet. I may find the quiet only to find it encroached by interruptions. Like Jesus, I don’t want to get angry with the interrupters. I want to be compassionate. I also don’t want to give up seeking quiet. It may just have to intensify my effort to find it.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Book Summary List, Wayfarer Podcast

Lamentations (Dec 2021)

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Each photo below corresponds to the chapter-a-day post for the book of Lamentations published by Tom Vander Well in December of 2021. Click on the photo linked to each chapter to read the post.

Lamentations 1: Blue Christmas

Lamentations 2: How I Should Grieve!

Lamentations 3: “Yet This I Call to Mind”

Lamentations 4: It Stinks to Be Right

Lamentations 5: A Different Spirit of the Season

Chapter-a-Day

A Different Spirit of the Season

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A Different Spirit of the Season (CaD Lam 5) – Wayfarer

the young men have stopped their music.
Joy is gone from our hearts;
    our dancing has turned to mourning.
Lamentations 5:14b-15 (NIV)

Wendy and I attended the funeral of a friend yesterday. As funerals go, it was the kind of celebration of life and faith that I appreciate. After a long battle with cancer, our friend ended his earthly journey at home, surrounded by his family, holding his wife’s hand. Each of his three children shared honestly and humorously about their father’s foibles as well as his faithfulness. It is popular to say that funerals are a celebration of life, but it was really true in this case. We really felt it in our hearts as we watched and listened.

During one of the special music numbers, Wendy leaned over and whispered to me, “This sounds like a song from a Broadway musical.”

She nailed it. My eyes grew big and nodded and smiled in agreement. But that wasn’t the end of it. As the song continued, Wendy started whispering to me her vision of the musical on stage.

“This is where the chorus slowly begins to make their way on stage to join the soloist as the music swells.”

At this point, I’m laughing because I can totally see it in my head.

The song continued to build through a repeat of the chorus, and then right on cue I leaned over and whispered, “Key change!”

Wendy doubled over with laughter as the song moved to the final bridge. As it moved to the dramatic closing Wendy whispered the possible titles of the musical we’d just conjured up in our heads. I can’t remember what she said. I was laughing too hard. It’s a good thing we were sitting in the back row.

Later in the day, Wendy and I talked about the fact that we both felt very much at ease at the funeral. Our friend knew where he going and was ready to go. He lived a life of faith, hope, and love and he touched our lives in such good ways. His family was laughing amidst their tears during the funeral. The spirit in the room was that of joy, which I think gave Wendy and me the freedom to share our own laugh together. I believe there is such a thing as a good funeral, and this was one of them.

I couldn’t help but bring that to mind as I read the final poem in Jeremiah’s five-poem cycle we call the book of Lamentations. Those who like happy endings will be disappointed. If anything, Jeremiah leaves me mired in the terrible circumstances he witnessed. There’s no glimmer of hope. It’s still out there somewhere on the dark horizon.

Jeremiah even leaves a buries a clue of his sorrow into the structure of the chapter. The structure of the first four poems in Lamentations are forms of alphabetic acrostics in which the first word of every verse began with successive letters in the 22 letter Hebrew alphabet. You might notice that there are 22 verses in today’s final chapter, but the verses don’t follow the alphabetic acrostic pattern. Metaphorically, the poet is telling us that things are breaking down, the structure is falling apart.

“The music has stopped,” Jeremiah reports. No joy. No dancing. No inspirational swell of a climactic Broadway finale. Not even a funeral dirge. There’s just continued mourning, the perpetuation of chaos which ends with a final questioning cry to God, whom Jeremiah feels is distant and aloof.

Christmas Eve is a week from today, and I admit that it has felt a bit odd to journey through Lamentations while the world is waxing sentimental about gingerbread houses, Santa’s visit, and “peace on earth goodwill to men.” At the same time, there was something about this week with Jeremiah that felt honest in a healthy way. This life journey ebbs and flows, and its course doesn’t always conveniently coincide with the spirit of the holidays the world seems to annually expect of me. And, that’s okay.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

“Yet This I Call to Mind”

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"Yet This I Call to Mind" (CaD Lam 3) – Wayfarer

Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”
Lamentations 3:21-24 (NIV)

Jeremiah shows all the signs of being an Enneagram Type Four. The constant brooding. The wallowing in melancholy. The ability to wax eloquent and hyperbolic on his suffering and affliction. Of course, Jeremiah has far more reason than I to brood. When, in today’s poetic chapter, he states “I called on your name, Lord, from the depths of the pit” it wasn’t just hyperbole. In Jeremiah 38, his enemies literally threw the prophet into an empty well and left him to die in the muddy slime at the bottom.

And I think I’ve seen some bad days.

One of the things lost on most readers of Lamentations is the intricate way in which it is written. Each chapter is its own separate Hebrew poem. Each poem (chapter) is a Hebrew acrostic, meaning that every verse begins with a different letter in the Hebrew alphabet. Today’s chapter is the middle poem, and those who joined me for last year’s journey through the book of Psalms might remember that in Hebrew poetry, the very middle verse or stanza or poem tends to contain the central theme. The way that Jeremiah structured this cycle of poems, the first verse of today’s chapter is the central verse of the book:

I am the man who has seen affliction
    by the rod of the Lord’s wrath.

[cue: I Am a Man of Constant Sorrows by the Soggy Bottom Boys]

Yesterday, I wrote about the very human need to grieve, and the permission that God gives throughout the Great Story to do so. I believe it is healthy on all levels to process and express sorrow and grief, and God gives consistent permission to do so. Jesus even sweat blood as He expressed His despair at the suffering He was about to face on the final day of his earthly journey. Singing the blues is good for the soul.

Along the journey, however, I’ve also learned that there’s a point at which the healthy expression of my sorrow becomes an unhealthy victim status. Jeremiah didn’t die in the pit. Jesus didn’t stay in the grave. Choosing to mire myself in despair and refuse hope is to deny the very core of my faith.

Jeremiah quite obviously was a student of David’s lyrics in the Psalms. He follows David’s example both in shamelessly singing the blues, but also in finding the inflection point at which a ray of light shines in the darkness. There’s always that moment when the free-fall ends and the road begins to ascend. It’s the moment of eucatastrophe when the winds shift, the lighthouse appears on the horizon, and the seeds of hope bear fruit in the midst of despair. Jeremiah, writing from the depths of death, starvation, and devastation more extreme than David ever faces, makes the turn to hope more eloquently than David ever did:

Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for him.”

That’s the moment I seek in every dark valley of my journey. The moment that comes after I’ve cried a river of tears, screamed like King Lear and his fool into the winds of misfortune, written endless pages of guttural lament, and feasted on every angry growl of my blues collection. The moment when I lay spent from the rage and my soul can finally hear the whisper:

“Yet this I call to mind…”

Wait for it.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.

Chapter-a-Day

How I Should Grieve!

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How I Should Grieve! (CaD Lam 2) – Wayfarer

The hearts of the people
    cry out to the Lord.
You walls of Daughter Zion,
    let your tears flow like a river
    day and night;
give yourself no relief,
    your eyes no rest.
Lamentations 2:18 (NIV)

I have a friend who is experiencing pain in life that I can’t imagine. Every day is a torment. My friend has actually compared daily life to Sisyphus, who perpetually struggled to roll a boulder up the hill only to have the law of physics win every time. He would watch as the boulder rolled back down requiring him to start again, and again, and again.

My friend steadfastly refuses to talk much about it.

“I remember you telling me thirty years ago about these old farmers in the church where you interned that one summer,” my friend said to me. “How these old guys were so stoic they would refuse to go to the doctor or the hospital even though they were suffering and dying. I’ve always admired that.”

I don’t begrudge the sentiment. I’ve observed that human nature often leads one to do almost anything to avoid pain. This is especially true when that pain is perpetual. I might find ways to numb out and avoid it. I might distract my mind and soul with any number of things. I might, like the old farmers my friend admired, stoically stuff my pain and suffering down deep and stoically steel myself to silently endure. In each case, I’m still just avoiding what the Great Story states, quite directly multiple times in multiple ways: the path of spiritual progress in this life is in pain, trouble, trials, and suffering. Jeremiah’s amazing five poems of Lamentation might easily be presented as Exhibit A.

Here’s a little Jeopardy! trivia: The Hebrew title of the book of Lamentations is “How” (Hebrew: ‘êkâ), after the first word of the first line of chapters 1, 2, and 4. Here are the three lines in succession:

How deserted lies the city,
    once so full of people!
How the Lord has covered Daughter Zion
    with the cloud of his anger!
How the gold has lost its luster,
    the fine gold become dull!

There’s something I really love about that. It recognizes what I find to be exactly what I need when I’m suffering struggles on this life journey: to honestly, emotionally, and unashamedly express my thoughts and emotions in a healthy way. That’s exactly what Jeremiah’s five-poem volume, How, is all about.

How I should grieve!

Along my spiritual journey, I’ve found it interesting to observe so many people who have a base assumption that life should be free of trouble, and that when experiencing trouble one should deny it, avoid it, and pretend that everything is okay. On the contrary, my perpetual journey through the Great Story reminds me constantly to experience trouble head-on, to fully express sorrow, and to allow life’s troubles to do their spiritual work in me as I cling to hope in God’s promises and have faith that there are good things on the other side of the pain.

The Sage of Ecclesiastes said that there is a time and season to mourn and grieve on this journey just as there is a time and season to dance. I love the juxtaposition of those realities in one verse. It gives me permission (I might even say it commands me) to fully feel and express my grief, but it doesn’t allow me to sit in and wallow in victim status forever. Rather, it is in fully working through my grief that I make my way out of the valley and to the next mountain vista where I can just as fully dance on the summit. They are part of one another. My grieving gives fullness to the dancing. My dancing gives perspective to the grieving. I find that treating them as either-or experiences in life is spiritually anorexic. Experiencing their both-and interconnectedness is spiritually empowering.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded that there are times in this life when God gives me permission, even commands me to:

Cry out! Wail! Moan! Sing the blues!
Let my tears torrentially flow like a raging river.
Let it out around the clock.
Don’t stop until it’s done.

It’s through the free flow of my grief that God spiritually transports me to where He’s leading me.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.