I Hear You

I hear you:
when you cry in anguish
with a beyond-words-profound pain.
When the tears are too heavy to run down your face
because they are caught in the place,
in the moment when the hopes you once had
are pummeled by the attempts of another
to love themselves at the cost of your personhood.
In the silence without tears,
I hear you.

I hear you:
when the anger bubbles over
like molten lava, oozing out of every pore
as injustice and rape and tragedy and hatred
make you want to change the world while
asking God if there is any good still out there to save.
When you are arrested by the knowledge
that if this anger turns to rage
and life becomes more about trumpeting a cause
than protecting a person,
then you have traded in your heart of flesh
for a stone in the hands of hypocritical piety.
In the silence of your anger,
I hear you.

I hear you:
when you are sighing,
at the end of the weighted breaths
you hold deep inside, the internal mark
of the drooping shoulders you try to hold straight,
the downcast eyes that hold more lamentation
than a thousand sad poems ever could.
Weary and worn, the world passes by your stories
because the wisdom of wear-and-tear is not
nearly as entertaining as empty fairy tales and cheap love.
In the silence of your neglected sighs,
I hear you.

I hear you:
when empty hands equal empty stomachs,
when the only sound your body makes is
the gnawing ache of never having enough,
and when never having enough means your
dignity is stripped by those who have never known
life-draining hunger and thirst.
As hunger drowns out all life-sustaining impulses,
steals away the hope to keep going,
the hope that someone will finally see you--
In your hopeless hungry silence,
I hear you.

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says.

I Wept at the Table

I wept.  I came to the Table, and I wept.  Perhaps the Table was not set, the feast not set out yet, but my soul came close to Soul Food, and my only response came in tears.  I was preparing and practicing for my practicum service, the Holy Week chapel at Perkins.  As I played through the organ piece that will intertwine with the procession of the elements, I felt tears on my face and a lump in my throat.  My spirit's eye saw the bread and the cup coming to the altar, the meal being prepared.  And in that place, the Supper I typically engage with as providing food for the hungry, equality for the marginalized, care for the suffering was all those things, yet something more.  It was terrible and sorrowful for the very fact that I knew what had to happen for the prophecy of that meal to come true.  Perhaps it is not a new thought, but it was a new spiritual place for me.  To think that when we break the bread and pour the cup--eat the Body and drink the Blood--we prophesy what Christ did and is doing, while receiving the nourishment for all that is to come in Christ.  Should the joy of the meal not also mingle with tears at His suffering?  When we come to the thin place between things of earth and things of heaven which intersect with the pain and joy of the human condition in this meal--should we not greet it with silence and shouts of joy?  I have no clear ideas or arguments for why this is or is not.  Only elusive reflections on the layers of divine meaning found in what seems mundane to clumsy human eyes and hands.  But this I know--if scales must be torn off, if tears must be wept, if healing touch must occur, I do not care.  In the deepest part of myself, I long for spiritual eyes to see, spiritual ears to hear, spiritual hands to touch and heal, a spiritual nose to breathe in, and a spiritual tongue to taste and know and speak the most beautiful gift into the lives of hurting people:

Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.

God of the fog, God of our unknowing

God of the fog,
God of our unknowing,
The Irrational Comfort
Of a way unknown and a path unforged,
As we wait, hear our prayers.

God of the storm,
Still God in tragedy,
The Holder of Life,
Creator of order in our chaos,
As we wait, hear our prayers.

God of earthquakes,
God of the Crucifix,
The Despised Messiah
who wears our pain as flesh upon His bone,
As we wait, hear our prayers.

God who cries out,
God who laments death,
God who rips the Temple veil,
To bring hope to God's broken Beloved,
As we wait, grant us peace.

Aren't we all?

This morning over a plate of bacon, eggs, and pancakes, I looked up a my husband and asked, "What if I am called to deal with trauma through and in liturgy?"

[In case you were wondering, we rarely have normal breakfast table conversations.]

I asked this question for several reasons that I won't get into now. But the fact remains, I have a good deal of life experiences and personality traits that give me a disposition to be a strong and compassionate presence in trauma, be it a long term ordeal or sudden situations.

Then, I read a blog this morning by a United Methodist pastor that I respect who made some tough statements about the slow implosion of the United Methodist Church as he sees it.  This is my denomination, this my "home place," these are the people I want to work for and with to spread the Gospel of Christ.  I don't want it to self-destruct.  I want to be a part of bringing it to life.  And, with a husband already an ordained deacon in the UMC and me about to start the candidacy process, being part of a waning denomination is not a very good career move for us, either.   

So, here we are, embarking on life in intentional community; finding God, ourselves, and the bridge between worship and relational minstry in micro-community worship; wondering at the state of our denomination and church and where it will be in 20 years; seeking Christ in the face of a multitude of upheavals on a large and small scale; searching for what it means to be incarnational to a world in pain and a church in distress. 

And I wonder if I'm called to a special work of addressing trauma through liturgy. 

Maybe the better question is, aren't we all?