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Lament
by Major Sandra
Pawar
“It is the cry of those who see the
truth of the world’s deep wounds and the cost of seeking
peace. It is the prayer of those who are deeply disturbed
by the way things are.”
Emmanuel Katongole
One way we can respond to the plight of
unaccompanied minors is to lament alongside and with those who
have been damaged and who have lost hope. Emmanuel Katongole,
author of Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for
Justice, Peace and Healing, writes of lament as “a cry
directed to God. It is the cry of those who see the truth of
the world’s deep wounds and the cost of seeking peace. It is
the prayer of those who are deeply disturbed by the way things
are”.
When I spent time in Athens for my
field work, there was a continuous engagement with pain as I
heard devastating stories from refugees and asylum seekers. I
listened to the story of a mother from Afghanistan whose six
children were smuggled to Athens by human traffickers after
her husband was killed by the Taliban. I sat in Omonia and
Victoria Squares and watched young boys selling themselves for
sex in order to survive; I listened as they said “no” but went
with their exploiter anyway. I listened to case workers share
how they had children as young as nine years old sleeping on
the steps outside their building because they had no beds for
them inside. I heard the story of a child, a baby as young as
three, being left without family when her parents died at sea.
These are true stories; these are real-life situations that
should tear us up inside, stories that should cause us to
weep.
The only thing I could do with the
stories I heard and the things I saw was to give them back to
God and to cry and weep in lament for these children of God
who had faced and were facing things I could not even imagine.
Hoang reminds us that “there are countless stories of people
all over our world—people created by God for a life of
wholeness and flourishing but who instead undergo a living
nightmare of injustice”.
Such were the people I met in Athens:
deeply broken and hurting people, scarred from the injustices
of this world. Katongole shares that “when we draw near to
those who are most sinned against, our call is not first to
‘make a difference’ but to allow the pain of that encounter to
disturb us”.
Sometimes what we need to do first is to allow ourselves to be
disturbed and broken by the despair we see around us. To sit
in it, to acknowledge it and to feel it.
We must first learn the language of
lament before rushing to try to find solutions for the
problems we see. Lament opens the way for us to name the
brokenness, to honestly sit and mourn with those who mourn and
weep with those who weep. It is an ongoing action that helps
us stay close to the heart of God even as we move into the
work of justice. Katongole suggests that lament “helps us to
become aware of ways that we might be contributing to the
problems we see, and it prepares the ground for the
long-lasting but slow-going work of transformation”.
It’s easy to run away from people who are suffering and
much harder to stand in the struggles with them; but before we
attempt to do anything else, stand we must. We must stand
alongside those who are suffering, we must hear and embrace
their cries, and we must spend time in lament.
Making It Personal
Questions to Consider
1) Why do you think it is important
that we spend time lament over what is happening in the world
in regard to refugees and unaccompanied minors?
2) Find some scripture verses that
talk about lament, write them down and meditate on them.
3) Ask God to reveal to you his
heart over the stories and people who have read about thus far
in this book. Ask him to show you what breaks his heart.
Dear Lord
Meet us in our lament over the
suffering of your children in this world. Give us a heart that
grieves over the things that grieve and break your heart. Take
away our cold hearts and instead give us compassionate and
empathetic hearts. Send your Holy Spirit to comfort those who
need only the comfort you can give. Give peace to those who
are anxious and afraid.
Give us hope even when things seem hopeless. Help us to
be faithful in the spaces and places where you have placed us.
Amen
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