Tag Archives: Sorrow

“Yet This I Call to Mind”

December 15, 2021 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

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:

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!

December 14, 2021 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

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.

Chapter-a-Day

Blue Christmas

December 13, 2021 Tom Vander Well 1 Comment

“This is why I weep
and my eyes overflow with tears.
No one is near to comfort me,
no one to restore my spirit…”
Lamentations 1:16 (NIV)

I don’t really believe in coincidences, and I believe that everything is connected. Thus, I try to pay attention to patterns and connections.

Yesterday morning I read of the death and devastation caused by tornadoes across multiple states.

Later in the morning, I spoke with a friend among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers yesterday who is experiencing acute grief after the loss of a child.

“I can’t smile,” they said to me. “I try to do it. It’s like I’m physically incapable.”

After delivering the message in the next worship service, I was handed a note and asked to announce to our local gathering the death of a long-time, core member. He was once Wendy’s boss, and he a transformational presence in her life.

Yesterday afternoon, the blog post of an acquaintance landed in my inbox. It’s another installment in what I’ve observed to be a somewhat fashionable trend of late among a younger generation deconstructing their faith and waxing eloquent about the failings of the church/institution/Christian_brand of their youth. This individual wrote:

“I have lived…years in the company of people (and have been one myself) who are very quick to pose a theological short-hand as the solution to all of life’s woes. And when that theology fails, it is simply a problem of not believing enough.”

For the record, I don’t begrudge anyone their own spiritual wrangling on this earthly journey. Everyone has their own path to walk and their own story being told. I’ve observed that entire generations have something of a collective spiritual path. Nevertheless, it made me sad.

A couple of years ago, our local gathering went through an unprecedented season of death. I don’t remember the exact numbers but it was something like almost 200 families in our gathering experienced the death of a loved one in a period of about 18 months. This included infants, toddlers, and the son of a Pastor, who was just in his twenties. Thus, each Advent season we’ve had a Sunday we call “Blue Christmas” in which we remember those we’ve lost, and we give permission to grieve for those in the midst of it. We try to respectfully, lovingly, and sympathetically walk alongside. We do our best not to let the empty, sentimental schlock of the season distract us from the reality that there are those among us walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

Our local gathering handed out candles, along with a blessing, to any who wanted a light to remember those they’ve lost this Christmas season. Wendy picked one up as we left worship yesterday and delivered it to a loved one in the afternoon in remembrance of a key family member who passed years ago and in recognition of the recurring grief that comes with that loved one’s absence every Christmas.

Having connected all of these experiences in the past few days, I’ve decided to journey through the ancient, poetic book of Lamentations this week. Written by the prophet Jeremiah after the siege and fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., it is a lyrical expression of grief amidst the realities of suffering and death that we can scarcely imagine. Suffering and grief for which there is no easy theological solution. More on that as we walk with Jeremiah in his grief throughout this week.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself grieving those like the acquaintance who find themselves in the company of those whose faith is “a theological short-hand as the solution of all woes.” I pray they find new company among those who choose not to deny the woes in this life for which there is no solution, but for which there is sympathy, empathy, consideration, and wordless companionship on the walk through the valley of death’s shadow. I’m grateful to live among such company, and I’m thankful that in the Great Story there’s are entire books dedicated to the realities of incomprehensible suffering and grief.

I pray for all for whom this Christmas is a Blue Christmas.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Who Will Sing for Me?

August 20, 2018 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. Jeremiah also uttered a lament for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day. They made these a custom in Israel; they are recorded in the Laments.
2 Chronicles 35:24-25 (NRSVCE)

We don’t talk much about lament anymore which is a reality that I, well, lament. Lament is a great word that can either be used as a noun or a verb. When used in its verb form, it means to grieve and feel sorrow or loss. When used in its noun form, it points to a particular expression of grief. In history a lament was typically a song or a poetic lyric used during periods of grief. It’s the ancient ancestor of the blues.

In today’s chapter, the Chronicler adds a curious detail to the death of Josiah that he has used with no other King in all the biographical accounts he’s provided in the previous 34 chapters. He explains that the prophet Jeremiah (an all-star prophet) had uttered a lament for Josiah and that the choirs of Judah had sung laments for Josiah even to the Chronicler’s day. Generations later, they felt Josiah’s loss and continued to sing the blues.

This morning in the quiet the Chroniclers detail brought to mind an old-timey bluegrass ballad called Who Will Sing for Me? It’s got me thinking and meditating on the idea that how we live our daily lives in the present will affect how others will feel our loss when this earthly journey is over. How interesting that Josiah was lamented, but the Chronicler didn’t say that of Asa, or Manasseh, or Hezekiah. Josiah was lamented for generations.

As I begin this week I’m enter into the task list asking myself how I’m living this journey and what kind of difference I’m making. It has me mulling over a simple question in the back of my head: Who Will Sing for Me?

Lester? Earl? Take it away…

Have a great week, my friend. Live well.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Acts 14

May 14, 2012 Tom Vander Well Leave a comment

new life — from typicalmacuser via flickr

Then some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowds to their side. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of town, thinking he was dead. But as the believers gathered around him, he got up and went back into the town. The next day he left with Barnabas for Derbe. Acts 14:19-20 (NLT)

I was sitting with my friend the other afternoon talking about leadership. He made the comment that good leaders have a way of simplifying things for those they lead. A good leader can take a complex issue or circumstance and provide a very simple and clear explanation along with marching orders for his/her team.

That conversation came to mind this morning as I thought about Paul dealing with all sorts of complex social, cultural, political and spiritual situations. I’m intrigued by this verse about being Paul being stoned and thought dead, but then getting up and moving on with his mission. I often think that complex spiritual circumstances revolve around a deceptively simple principle of life, death, and resurrection. Paul was thought dead, but there was still life in him.

Along the journey there have been many death-like periods of time in which everything feels void of life and I seem surrounded by grief, sorrow, and emptiness. But, these times have always given way to new seasons of life, hope, and joy. Today I am thankful that death-like stretches of the journey are like Paul’s stoning – they are death-like, but they are not death itself. Death-like seasons of life give way to life-giving seasons of fresh beginnings, fullness of life and renewal.

Press on.

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Proverbs 15

January 23, 2012 Tom Vander Well 4 Comments

For the despondent, every day brings trouble;
for the happy heart, life is a continual feast.
Proverbs 15:15 (NLT)

This past Saturday night Wendy and I hosted a dinner party for a handful of friends. It wasn’t anything fancy schmancy. We simply made a light dinner with some sandwiches, chips and a few bottles of wine. Wendy made one of her fabulous cheesecakes for dessert. All day long we putzed around the house getting ready for our company. Wendy and I had truly happy hearts as we prepared for our evening.

As I read the above Proverb this morning, I was reminded of our friendly feast. It was life giving in both the preparation and the execution. So much so, in fact, that after the last guest left Wendy and I cleaned up and then found ourselves chatting until we had to remind ourselves that it was the wee hours of the morning and we both had obligations at church in a few short hours.

Each day, even busy Mondays, can be a life giving feast, or they can be a sorrowful, miserly spread. The difference is in the condition of my heart.