"Lament does not necessarily entail guilt." Because our culture associates lament with "guilt" we are often afraid of asking "Why?" Because we want or need answers, because we fear the nothingness, we don't know how to grieve.

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann in his book Praying the Psalms writes, "Psalms of lament are powerful expressions of the experience of disorientation. They express the pain, grief, dismay, and anger that life is not good. They also refuse to settle for things as they are, and so they assert hope." 

What Brueggemann calls the "experience of disorientation," we might also recognize as freedom from needing answers for everything. Suffering does not need to make sense. It just is. "Lament is simply grief brought before God, carried in a vessel made from even the smallest shred of faith." insists Debra Rienstra.

What are the sufferings and griefs that we want to question God about? What problems seem too immense, too overwhelming, too daunting to even pray about because we have no idea where to start? Where do we begin with gun violence, climate change, political incivility, lack of access to justice and economic opportunity, racial strife, false religious claims?

Each week in Lent, during our 6:00 PM mid-week service, we will allow the beautiful music of Holden Evening Prayer to wash through us. During the worship we will pause for a Psalm of Lament. Then we will simply allow for some time in silence to question reflect, pray and listen. That is all. This year's spiritual journey of lament will be a prayer journey calling us to be present to God, our world and to one another.

With you on the journey,

Pastor Tom Tweed and Pastor Dave Brauer-Rieke