“In cases of injustice and atrocities such as genocide, the only real response we can have at first is to lament.”
— Richard Rohr
“’Before the Rwandan genocide, the majority of Rwandans were Christians. Yet in 1994, beginning on the Easter weekend, [Katongole writes,] ‘Christians killed other Christians, often in the same churches where they had worshiped together…. The most Christianized country in Africa became the site of its worst genocide.’
Reflecting on the Rwandan genocide, Katongole says, ‘The resurrection of the church begins with lament.’ This is difficult for many Americans and others living in Western countries to grasp. Our culture teaches us to embrace a triumphalistic and success-oriented posture. Thus we avoid lament. Americans are prone to move quickly to try to fix things, and often we need to lament, mourn, and grieve first to fully experience and understand what has taken place. In cases of injustice and atrocities such as genocide, the only real response we can have at first is to lament. Scripture teaches us that we can’t move toward hope, peace, transformation, and reconciliation without going through sorrow, mourning, regret, and lament….
Lament is a demonstrative, strong, and corporate expression of deep grief, pain, sorrow, and regret. Lament and repentance deal with issues of the heart. They pave the way for outer change. Lament is a personal and corporate response to many things: evil, sin, death, harm, discrimination, inequality, racism, sexism, colonization, oppression, and injustice. It is about mourning the painful, shameful, or sorrowful situation, about confessing sin and complicity and sorrow, about calling God to intervene and to change the situation. Finally, lament is about offering thanksgiving and praise to God, knowing that God will intervene and bring change, hope, and restoration.”
So began a recent Richard Rohr daily meditation that resonated with me.
We could also say the “resurrection” or restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints began(s) with lament. As a young boy, Joseph Smith was lamenting the strain and distance he felt he had put between God and himself. Our current prophets have said that our restoration is ongoing. Today there is much we have to lament about. All of our current world conflicts arose from one or both parties not lamenting enough the past wrongs they have committed. Most of our relationship misery comes from lack of lamentation and confession. Sincere lamentation prepares the soil for forgiveness and healing to arise and bloom.
Over a decade ago my wife and children helped me see the shadow side of my desire to help them be their best and live as I believed God wanted them to live. I had been taught for decades that I was the patriarch of the home and responsible for my family’s eternal salvation and well-being. Feeling and being responsible for your family and others is not all bad. However, I discovered through this painful and traumatic illumination that the shadow side of my good intentions were too often manifest in manipulative, controlling, and occasionally harsh behaviors that were harming those I loved most. Of course my character deficits also contributed.
I spent many many months seeking to be more quiet, meditative, receptive and observant than I had been. I felt great remorse and lamented my folly and blindness to what had been revealed to me. I grieved the harm and unhappiness I had caused. For a time I felt like a terrible father and husband. I sought prayerfully and earnestly to do better. I confessed and apologized more than once verbally and in writing to my family together and individually. I am deeply grateful for their forgiveness.
In the midst of my despair, confusion, and darkness, God let me know in several miraculous ways that whatever might befall me, I would never lose Their love and support. My burden was lightened as I sought to yoke myself more with Jesus Christ. To let him be the savior rather than me. No longer did I need to stress and fuss about others performing to the standards of what I thought God wanted. I just needed to help them feel the abundant and unrestrained love of God through me that I had been fortunate enough to feel. I came to more fully understand and believe that God did not want me or others to live in fear but live in an abundance of hope, faith, and charity. While difficult and gut-wrenching, my lament brought me and my family healing, greater peace, and into more loving relationship.
I pray that I will be humble enough to lament and confess as needed. I pray that my church, government, corporations, institutions and individuals will employ sincere lamentation and confession for harms they have done. Doing so does not diminish or erase the good that those who caused the harm did. Despite my misguided and poor behaviors at times I also did good. I was not a terrible person. I was not evil. I was not an enemy to be destroyed or erased from history. Like most people I was doing the best I knew how at the time.
Such grace for ourselves and others empowers us to lament and heal ourselves and others. To lament is to first feel what others feel in relationship to us. We call this empathy. Empathy leads to remorse, apology, restitution, and often forgiveness. And these bring healing, peace, wellbeing, and joy.
Let us lament!
