"We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a
while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something
important, about something real?"
– Ray Bradbury

Tell ’em, Ray!  You preach it, brother!

I have been bothered lately.  And when I say ‘bothered’ I mean really ticked off, angry, disappointed, frustrated, disillusioned, disoriented, saddened, disgusted, flabbergasted, grasping, grieving, and irritated.  I am not proud of my emotions, but I also do not apologize for them.  As believers, I think we too often cork up our complaints and zip them behind concrete, plastic smiles of contentment.  (Hi, how are you doing?  Oh, good, good.  Great.) Lies. We’re not honest with ourselves, so how can we be authentic to others?  But what recourse do we have?

After all aren’t we encouraged by scripture to be content in any and every situation?  If people like Paul and Peter were happy to be punching bags for the Lord, shouldn’t we relish in our relatively less-violent trials and tribulations?  Do we have a right to put questions to the Lord:

Hey, what’s up? 

Aren’t you running this show? 

Did the E-vite get lost in cyberspace or something?  Are You coming or not?

God, where are you in the muck and mire of what we are up against here?

How can your kingdom come in all this human wreckage we see around and in us?

I know it seems like I’m shifting blame.  From a practical standpoint we are the ones responsible for this jacked up world we live in.  But still when we have learned to trust in God’s loving-kindness (Heb: hesed) and we have entered into His goodness and His kingdom work, it’s hard to make sense of His (seeming) absence and silence.  The victories seemed swallowed up in mounting defeats.  And no one who loves Him wants God to have a laissez-fair attitude towards them and their life’s course.

If you’re like me (and some of you are) you are going to start thinking of your counter-arguments.  You’ll wax philosophical about the lives of Job and Joseph, maybe pull out the David and Jeremiah cards, too.  You’ll point to long periods of time where things didn’t go "as planned" in the lives of the faithful.  Maybe you’ll say, "His ways are not our ways." You’ll persuade me that we only see a small piece of the eternal puzzle that He is masterfully jig-sawing together up there in his Winnebago in the sky.  The debate, perhaps, will turn to the faith chapter in Hebrews; we’ll talk about the "far off" country that many have migrated towards without ever attaining it in their lifetime, and maybe we’ll get down to the brass tacks of character development (sanctification) and the maturity that results from enduring hardship and clinging to the Lord.  But I’ve read St. John of the Cross and I know all about the "dark night of the soul"…

And sometimes it’s just not enough.

To know all these truths about God, to embrace a faith that is personal and alive, to leap off a cliff because we have the confidence of lemmings that we will be caught, and to not be caught…

It’s bothersome.

Please, don’t misunderstand.  I haven’t lost sight of the crux of the cross.  I understand that just because I don’t feel caught, doesn’t mean He’s not going to catch me.  I know that I can’t possibly see the things He sees that are right under my nose.  But knowing factual information in one’s head, doesn’t always help to cope with the emotional state of one’s heart.

My heart feels a bit tired…

• I’m tired of sickness.  You know about my aunt’s cancer…it’s not right. It’s not fair.  And for many it’s (i.e. sickness) not going to stop…for a long time.  Even the healthiest of us will eventually succumb to the Great Unavoidable Sickness of Death.  And although sickness and death are as much a part of human existence as eating and sleeping, it still brands my heart to know that this is not the type of kingdom God intended or wanted for us.  Sickness and death simply shouldn’t be.  I don’t have to be happy about it or resigned to it.  I don’t want to slap a pretty platitude on it.  It just sucks (regardless of what happens next…)
• I’m tired of the disintegration of community.  It seems like no matter what side of the world we are residing in, community is more of an ideal than a lived-out reality.  I am sadly talking about Christian community.  We can’t agree on what’s important to focus attention on.  We can’t agree to love each other more than ourselves and our own agendas.  We can’t commit to each other on any tangible day-to-day, practical level.  And we can barely see beyond the superficial level we often hide ourselves behind.  In my cynical state of mind I think:  we just can’t make this work for any prolonged length of time.  It feels like we’re still back there in the Garden, making prickly ivy underwear while bickering over who took the first bite of mango…
• I’m tired of kids with guns shooting everyone in sight and then themselves.  I don’t think this requires further explanation.
• I’m tired of saying goodbye.  If there is one main thing I regret about moving to China it’s all the attached goodbyes that have become our "lingua franca".  It’s hard enough to say long goodbyes to your family and friends, but then to have to keep saying farewell (over and over) to those in your transitional ex-pat community, it just boggles my mind and feels like a constant destabilizing factor.  It’s just not natural to experience these "little deaths" on a regular basis.
• I’m tired of the Enemy winning so many battles.  If "the devil" is a defeated foe, someone should probably resend him the Memo.  He’s not acting like he lost.  From my limited perspective, peoples lives are STILL being destroyed on a daily basis because the devil hasn’t quit yet.  Christians are throwing in the towel; they are being unjustly derailed from their kingdom dreams and visions; and they are being afflicted in any and every possible way.  That sounds so dire, but that’s not even mentioning non-Christians.  I know there’s hope to be had, but when you open your ears, it’s that Greasy Wheel that is singing the loudest.
• I’m tired of the injustice that is so prevalent in the world.  Point to the country, the people, the issue.  Our world is not a place where righteousness, mercy, and love abound.  We are self-consumed, manipulative, greedy, hurtful creatures.  I am the worst of all of these things and more.  We are sinners to the core.

I could go on, but my point is not to complain to you. What I want is to complain to God.  I want all of us to start complaining to God more.  It’s time to start baring our souls, ripping our clothes, and scraping some previously unused ash from our fire places.  We need to lament again (like David, Jeremiah, and so many others before us).  We’re being too nice; too Christian; too placid; too apathetic–too blind.  I mentioned some of my current griefs, but this list could be so much bigger.  We have forgotten how to cry out in honesty to our loving God who IS there (somewhere?)  It’s only by giving Him our grief, struggles, hurts, questions, anger, etc. that we come through the other side INTO HIS PRESENCE.   But first, we have to admit that this world is not as it should be.  In some ways, we have to fess up to our own dissatisfaction, longing, and desperation.  We have to start opening our eyes to the REAL world around us.

In closing, I do want to just say that I think He is on the other side of this cloud of hurt/confusion I feel I am in.  I am processing my lament and giving Him all the bile I can spew out.  Lately I have also had some help along this angry path.  I’ve been listening to a lot of Rage Against the Machine, a rock group that often screams vehemently naughty words to let people know just how dissatisfied they are with the unjust world we have created.  (Before I judge their methods, I like to remind myself that at least they’re "doing something" to express and effect change from their own cultural context and belief system.  It’s often more than I can say for myself…)  I listen to them because it reminds me to get mad.  We forget that Jesus got frustrated and mad at times.  He wrecked things!  (He actually made a whip when he cleaned out the temple!  A whip…)  I am not advocating a form of ‘anger therapy’ or blind rage, but shouldn’t we be bothered enough to ACT OUT at times.  Aren’t there issues that are important enough to us?  If so, when do we ever do it (in a godly way)?  When do we ever get pissed enough to scream and shout about our broken world?  I have seldom, if ever, seen it.

The other source I found helpful  is what actually inspired this post.  This source, which you might find more accessible than RATM, is Michael Card’s book, A Sacred Sorrow.  This book has helped me greatly, during this tough time, see the importance of giving God my heart–with all its sorrow and grief. I am hoping what Mr. Card says is true and that we can find healing along this forgotten path of true lament.  Here’s an excerpt from the book (and thanks for listening to my tirade):

The Fall that ushered lament into the world is a dark cloud, a cloud of unknowing.  When death and disease come we are enveloped for a time in the cloud.  As it blows us, we fear it might cut us off from the healing, resurrecting Presence.  For one confused moment we misunderstand, thinking its very existence is the ultimate contradiction to hesed.  For one brief instant we cannot see the face of our Father.  Through lament we push into and through (not around) the cloud.  Only then do we completely reach the other side, the place where we find Jesus waiting for us.

If you think about it, there isn’t much in life that isn’t "life threatening". We all carry deep within ourselves a pressurized reservoir of tears.  It takes only the right key at the right time to unlock them.  The lock can be forced or the unlocking can happen prematurely, to our ruin.  But in God’s perfect time, through lament, when these tears are released, they can form a vast healing flood.