Hello my friends,

I hope you've had a wonderful week. Where I live in Idaho, we are currently experiencing a lot of snow fall with freezing temperatures. With January being my birthday month (the 12th), I have come to always expect a freezing birthday haha. I love how much snow we are getting though for the rivers and streams in the year ahead.

I had an interesting experience last week. I was expressing my grief to someone online about how Christianity has been misused in political circles and my desire to bring healing to the hurt it has caused others. Then someone jumped into the conversation and angrily told me how the very heart of Christianity is rotten to the core. They said there is nothing to be salvaged about it and that I needed to simply give it up. This person had been a Christian their whole lives until very recently.

Their words stuck with me ever since. As I pondered it, I realized I was expressing my grief, which seemed offensive to this person. Yet, what they did was to express their hurt and grief by way of anger towards me. It made me ponder the importance of lament with you all today and why it can sometimes be so controversial.

But before we get into that, here are some resources to consider.

RESOURCES TO CONSIDER

-Healing Your Heart by Hidden Brain podcast: We’ve all heard about the five stages of grief. But what happens when your experience doesn’t follow that model at all? Resilience researcher Lucy Hone began to question how we think about grief after a devastating loss in her own life. She shares the techniques she learned to help her cope with tragedy.

-Happiness 2.0: The Only Way Out Is Through also by Hidden Brain Podcast: It's natural to want to run away from difficult emotions such as grief, anger and fear. But what happens when these feelings catch up with us? This week, in the second installment of our Happiness 2.0 series, psychologist Todd Kashdan looks at the relationship between distress and happiness, and how to keep difficult emotions from sabotaging our wellbeing.

​-How to Change the World also by Hidden Brain Podcast: Does power truly flow from the barrel of a gun? Pop culture and conventional history often teach us that violence is the most effective way to produce change. But is that common assumption actually true? Political scientist Erica Chenoweth, who has studied more than 100 years of revolutions and insurrections, says the answer is counterintuitive.

​-Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times by Soong-Chan Rah:

The American church avoids lament. But lament is a missing, essential component of Christian faith. Lament recognizes struggles and suffering, that the world is not as it ought to be. Lament challenges the status quo and cries out for justice against existing injustices.

Soong-Chan Rah's prophetic exposition of the book of Lamentations provides a biblical and theological lens for examining the church's relationship with a suffering world. It critiques our success-centered triumphalism and calls us to repent of our hubris. And it opens up new ways to encounter the other. Hear the prophet's lament as the necessary corrective for Christianity's future.

-The Nostalgia Bone Throughline Podcast They say "everything old becomes new again." Today, that's baggy jeans, shag haircuts, 90s music, TV sitcoms – the latest version of finding comfort in nostalgia and familiarity in what came before. We constantly look for safety in the permanence of the past, or at least, what we think the past was. But, when it first appeared, nostalgia itself wasn't considered a feeling; it was a deadly disease. This episode traces the history of nostalgia from its origins as an illness to the dominating emotion of our time. And in doing so, we wrestle with its eternal paradox to both hold us back and keep us going.

​-Complaining to God by Father Richard Rohr: This short little article is a good read when you need encouragement to pray prayers of lament.

Okay, onto today's content.

Why Is Lamenting So Controversial?

Lament is a word we use to describe mourning and grieving. To lament is to express sorrow, through wailing, weeping, crying, and sobbing.

The truth is, we American Christians are generally pretty unpracticed when it comes to lament. Especially lamenting together. Over one third of the Psalms are prayers of laments. Yet, so much of our music and our worship liturgies focus on themes of praise and thanksgiving, leaving the corporate practice of lament a private, individual affair if it is practiced at all.

In a society that is built around the notion of the "pursuit of happiness," focusing on lament can often be framed as negative and even demonized. We Americans are supposed to be rugged individuals. Tough and self determined. When these notions are taken to their extreme, the expression of deep sorrow can be defined as a weakness, rather than a strength. It may even be seen as a sin.

Lament is all over the Bible though and we can't ignore it.

Israel laments their situation in Egypt to God.

Israel mourns for Moses and Aaron after their deaths.

Mary and Martha wail when their brother Lazarus has died.

In fact the only book of the Bible to be named after an emotion is "Lamentations."

“He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust. I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is. So I say, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord.” -Lamentations 3:16-18

Yet, we so often tend to prefer the Proverbs of Praise and Paul telling us that "all things work together for the good of those who love God."

We have been told that we should never complain. We have been told that we should pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. If you grew up in Idaho, it was "dust yourself off and get back up on that horse no matter how many times you are bucked off."

Well, Jesus was not a cowboy.

Jesus actually said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." He knew something that we often misunderstand. The sin and brokenness in our world deserves to lamented! The hurt we experience in our own lives deserves to be understood and lamented! When we just burry our laments, they become a deep part of who we are. But when we express what breaks our hearts, we are able to process it, express it out of our mouths and out our hearts. We are able to share in one another's grief. Only when we do this can comfort and healing come. This is why Jesus calls it "blessed." Jesus wants us to be real with what breaks our heart.

We see this faithful lament from Jesus.

When he weeps over the sins of God’s people outside Jerusalem. (Luke 19:41-44)

When he prays in the garden to the point of sweating blood because of the weight of the coming cross. “If it be your will, take this cup from me! But not my will but yours be done!”

And when he is on the cross and he cries out, “my God my God, why have you forsaken me!”

Jesus is faithful in bearing his broken heart to God.

Hebrews 4 says that We don’t have a high priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness, testing, grief, loss, and trials. He experienced it all.

When we lament we invite God into our suffering. When we burry our sorrows and our grief, we are not opening ourselves up to being comforted by others let alone being open to God’s grace and mercy breaking in to bless and comfort us.

We speak our sorrows to God so that God can speak to our sorrows.

Can you imagine reading the Psalms if Israel was not honest about what broke their hearts? We hear the whole spectrum of our human experience through them, from lament to praise. Here's just one example back to back:

“Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me. All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me. You have taken from me friend and neighbor— darkness is my closest friend.” -Psalm 88:16-18

“I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations.” -Psalm 89:1

The truth is, God already knows what is deep within our hearts. God already knows our words before we speak. Odds are, those who love us deeply also already know we are going through something too.

The question is, are we going to be proactive in giving our laments to God and those who love us? We can't hide anything from God and those who love us. We can't just try to convince ourselves that we can do it on our own. We really can't. Being honest with what breaks our hearts before God and others is a work of being honest with ourselves before God and others. Not only the honesty of saying that we cannot carry these laments alone, but that we deserve to be heard and comforted too.

This is why it is so important to express our lament.

Psalm 18:6 says: "In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears."

Psalm 34:17 says: "The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles."

Scripture shows us that lament is a righteous "blessed" act and God does hear our cries. Yet, we are sadly so averse to lament in our society.

I believe our collective inability to lament has played a big role in where we currently are socially and politically. Do you notice how so much of what we hear from politicians is not actual policy suggestions but stoking anger and fear about "them" on the "other side?" They are literally taking our hurt and pain and using it as a political weapon rather than pursuing comfort and healing of those wounds through actual listening and productive change.

Political analysts and historians call this "grievance politics," which is defined by the fueling and funneling negative emotions and various blame-based political strategies which explicitly challenge and confound many of the core principles and values that have traditionally underpinned conventional conceptions of party politics. When this becomes more and more the norm among the people, it a perfect entry point for the rise of a "demagogue," which is a political leader who seeks support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational arguments. Sound familiar?

When we don't admit, express, and lament the grief we have caused each other, we open ourselves up to taking out our hurt on those who we believe have hurt us. Hurt people hurt people.

In this context, the laments of the "other side" become increasingly controversial to those on a different side.

Here are just a few examples of controversial laments:

Hurt Christians or "deconstructing" Christians. An unfortunate trend I have seen is responding to the laments of people who have been hurt by the church, not with compassion or understanding, but with defensiveness and shame. Phrases like, "the church is full of broken people, you shouldn't let it impact your faith" become an all too common response, completely disregarding the pain of the hurting. It is as if listening to those who have been hurt by the church somehow threatens their faith.

Abortion: progressives are often not allowed to lament the loss of their baby, whether it is to abortion or not, because it’s "just a fetus” and it is seen as not upholding the "pro choice" cause. Conservatives are not allowed to lament the loss of their baby to an abortion, because abortion is most often understood as a sin rather than a needed healthcare decision given the circumstances. 7 out of 10 women who have had an abortion in the United States identify as Christian. How many of them do you think are able to be open about their grief and experience in their own churches? You can read more on this here. There is also an incredible 2 part podcast episode from More Perfect that highlights this kind of grief so very well here.​

LGBTQ+ Lament: Many of my LGBTQ+ friends have told me how they don't often feel free to express their grief of losing relationships and church community they once had before they came out. They feel like they can't do that fully within the LGBTQ community because it seems to threaten solidarity with their community and they certainly don't feel free to do that within their churches.

Black Lament. We all saw how well “Black Lives Matter” went over with many in the Evangelical Christian community, which is a quintessential phrase of deep lament, along with "I can't breath!" In a world that has systemic prejudice against Black people, it was a lament saying, "our lives matter too!" Yet we all saw how well NFL players kneeling during the national anthem at football games to protest and lament those lost to racial violence and police brutality went over. So much was done to not listen to the laments being cried out for justice.

Women’s Lament: From the #Metoo movement, to equal rights, to medical freedom, the swell of negativity and resistance to simply hear the laments from women of how they are mistreated and devalued in a society that has been so influenced by patriarchal standards is such a heartbreaking norm in our culture and our churches.

Generational Lament. Millennials are not allowed to lament the difficulties of the current economic situation they are in, where many (like my self) are dealing with educational debt, high cost of living, wages that haven’t kept up with that cost of living, and policies that are completely out of touch with our current reality. These laments are often met with ambivalence or shame. As a millennial myself, allow me to lament about this for just a moment.

In the average Millennial two spouse household with small children, both spouses are working full-time if not more to cover all the bases. I have always had to have one or two other side jobs while working as a full-time pastor just to get by. My wife works as a hairstylist and owns her own salon. On top of that, in places like Idaho where I live, the cost of childcare is almost equal to a mortgage payment. That means just for a home and childcare, the average family is paying $3,500 per month. That isn’t counting utilities, groceries, phone bill, internet bill, let alone student loan repayments or saving for retirement.

Many couples are put in the impossible position of both spouses working and not being able to get ahead or only one spouse working to be at home with the kids to save on childcare costs and still not be able to get ahead. This is all in a state that constantly claims to be a “pro family” state, yet as one who is born and raised here, it is quite clear what “family” they mean. They are pro “heterosexual families, where the wife stays home and takes care of the kids and the husband goes off to work.” And by “work” they mean, “work yourself to death by working 80/hrs a week, never see your kids, and still not be able to afford to live because we aren’t going to raise wages to meet the current cost of living.” Ah, and if you bring this up or just quit to try to find something better, you get met with an equally out of touch, shaming phrase, “no one wants to work.” Even in the church. A more truthful phrase would be, "no one wants to work for organizations that do not recognize the lived experience of their employees and do what they can to meet them where they are."

I am convinced that one of the most hurtful things older generations can do is assume younger generations have the exact same economy and financial situation that they did when they were "our age." We don't.

Because of wounds like these within the younger generations, the older generations are often not allowed to lament the way things were before and even their grief of growing old and losing their friends and health may be neglected and ignored.

Lament from the "other side." This one became increasingly challenging for me as a pastor here in Idaho. During the height of the pandemic, my deep concern for the vulnerable and elderly in my community drove me to encourage people in my congregation to follow public health guidelines, wear their masks, and choose to get vaccinated. It really grieved my heart to hear Christians in the public eye decried these methods as a "conspiracy" or "tyranny," or even "persecution" all while I was ministering to people who were dying from Covid. This grief made me pretty resistant and closed off in my heart to those who had genuine questions and concerns about public health guidelines and vaccinations. Because I didn't express my grief over what was being said from major Christian figures, I was unable to clearly hear the grief of others outside of my own pain.

All these and many others I'm sure, are too controversial primarily because it is “too real.” We are constantly told “not to complain,” yet we are never told how to express our grief in healthy ways. It is as if we are only allowed to hear grief if we agree with what is being grieved. What comfort can come if we only mourn with those who mourning what we think they should mourn over?

The reality is, grief will express itself in one way or another. It will either be allowed to be expressed in the presence of love and healing. Or it will express itself in isolation and separation from people and society, probably culminating in depression or worse. What is more, it just might express itself in rage, like an insurrection. Again, hurt people hurt people.

As James Baldwin said so eloquently, "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."

Our grief is not something we should just "get over" on our own.

Our griefs and sorrows are not to be seen as not worthwhile to bring before God and others.

Jesus said, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

We are to speak our sorrows to God so that God can speak to our sorrows. When we lament, we declare that God rules over our sorrows rather than allowing our sorrows to rule over our God.

We need to lament the brokenness of our world, for that is how comfort, healing, and justice comes.

You may find yourself in a place today with deep sorrow, anger, pain, and or heartache. Please know that God and those who love you want to hear about those things.

Perhaps you are mourning the loss of a loved one, to death or broken a relationship. Perhaps you are angry with yourself, with the world, or maybe you are even upset with God. God is able and wants to hear your anger, even if it is directed at God.

Or maybe you are simply heartbroken over the state of suffering of those in our world. The victims of war, hate, and discrimination. Don't stay silent.

Finish this phrase, "my heart is grieving over ______"

Whatever you put in that blank space, I want to invite you to take the next week and find a way and safe place to express that grief. Then allow comfort to come.

Lament the brokenness of your heart trusting that you are loved.

Now I'd like to hear from you.

What have been some of the most helpful ways you've found to navigate your grief? How has your perspective on grief changed over time? Do you feel like your laments are allowed to be heard? Send me a message if you'd like to share.

Also, is there something you'd like me to write on in the future? Please drop me a note and let me know.

If you benefit from this project and would like to support it through a recurring gift, you can do so here: There's a $5/mo, $10/mo, and a $25/mo available.

If you’d like to support it through a one time gift, you can do that here: one-time-gift.​

As always, thank you all for reading and for all the ways you support me and this project every week.

I truly appreciate you all,

Ben

Remember, you can now view all previous newsletters and invite friends to join through just one link: https://benjamin-cremer.ck.page/profile.

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