[Presented as part of November, 2011 South Loop Campus Ministry board meeting.]
When the darkness appears
And the night
draws near
And the day is past and gone
At the river I stand,
guide my feet, hold my
hand
Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.
 |
| Seeming to based on Romans 5:20, this is written on a wall of a loading dock by Lower Columbus Drive. SLCM volunteers regularly deliver sandwiches to homeless folks who sleep there. |
with the homeless woman crying and wailing about the cold, about being hungry, about the conditions in the shelters…about so many things. I don’t know how long we would have tried to hold her hand, squeeze her shoulders, pray silently and pray aloud, nod empathetically and stare blankly back at her. I don’t know how long we would have felt helpless to help.
I
don’t know how long we would have been stuck in our not knowing if Thomas, one
of our homeless guides, hadn’t tapped me on the shoulder and said, “She’s like
this all the time, and now I probably won’t get any sleep tonight. Time to move
on.”
Walter
Brueggemann wrote in Prophetic
Imagination that lament is a necessary action to break out the paralysis of
what he calls the “royal consciousness”, that state of being stuck in whatever
state we’re in right now. That status quo always serves the already powerful
and always hurts the already hurting. And damn—that woman at the corner of
Lower Wacker and Lower Michigan was hurting and
lamenting.
In
a much quieter manner students were lamenting up on the 14th floor
of Roosevelt University’s Wabash Building where we had set up a Reformation Day
door. Students wrote their grievances and their visions for change in the world
on pieces of paper and then literally nailed them on the door. People wrote
about everything from a living wage for workers to legalization of pot to “some
lovin’ for Mexicans”. I don’t know exactly what spurred them to write what they
did, but a lot of people liked the action of nailing their “theses” to the
door. I suppose it was an avenue to release some of their pent up anguish. I
doubt our flimsy door could survive a full release of their anguish.
Sometimes
in ministry pastors can get to thinking that people have such petty problems.
Don’t these people know that while they’re whining about their roommates other
folks are freezing down by the Chicago River? And don’t get me started on
economic inequality…
Here’s
the thing—lament is lament, even if I don’t understand why a certain issue is
problematic. If justice is “right relationship”, then injustice must be broken
relationship. And that is something to lament.
Kyrie eleison.
