Lament

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief. Psalm 102

In the Jewish culture, after the burial of a person, the family returns home to sit shiva for seven days. Shiva is the Hebrew word for seven. During the shiva week, mourners are expected to remain at home and sit on low stools, indicating “feeling low,” as an expression for depression. During Shiva, there is no entertaining, no cooking, no working, no going out, no running around or carrying on with normal life. Shiva requires the individual to feel their feelings and mourn their loss. For seven days.

I’ve been reading about the Prayer of Lament. Praying for someone who is grieving. The author writes that when someone is hurting, instead of jumping right to the “pray for,” begin with the “pray with.” Sitting with the person in their pain, listening to their cries before ever beginning to pray for them or to offer scripture of hope and a future. When praying for someone, you begin by sitting shiva with them. Praying in lament.

I don’t think I’ve ever truly lamented, certainly not for any measured length of time. I think I’m like most people. Pain and/or loss hits and you push through, giving it attention only for a little while or when you can in between your responsibilities both at home and at work.  

And, as I think about it now, I’m not a very good lamenter with others. Several years back a friend stopped by to tell me about a difficult time she was having. When she finished I started right in on the good that could come out of it, what God would work out for her. She placed her hand on my arm and said, “Sharon, would you please stop and give me a minute to feel what I’m feeling.” My first lesson and awareness of lament. Since then, I’ve done my best to listen, but it’s hard for me. The Pollyanna in me (1960 Disney movie of the same name, starring Haley Mills) wants to, as quickly as possible, bring hope and healing. 

But by not giving pain the attention it deserves, pain lingers, gets buried and then shows up at the most inconvenient times. All because lament was rushed or passed over.

In scripture we know that the number seven symbolizes completeness. Which makes me think that there might be something to this sitting shiva. Not that if you do, all is perfect and well on day eight, but there’s something to allow or even make ourselves feel the full impact of pain and loss. To give ourselves and others permission to be depressed. And to live in that depression. For seven days, seven hours, seven minutes.

The Prayer of Lament would certainly change my approach to praying for people. I’m accustomed to listening and then immediately encouraging them and blessing them, offering them a lifeline of scripture to God. But what if I simply listened to their pain. Sat with them in their pain. Encouraged their pain. That alone feels like a healing prayer. I suppose I would have to invite them back so we could pray the Prayer of Incession. If nothing else, though, when I have 3 minutes with someone, I need to begin in lament. Hear them. Affirm them. Sit with them. For their 2-½ minutes of shiva. And then take the last 30 seconds to intercede. In a heart that has been prepared because we spent time in lament.