I shall look at the world through tears. Perhaps I shall see things that dry-eyed I could not see.
― Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

A few days ago, I read through the book of Lamentations. How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! [Lamentations 1:1] It seemed a fitting book, for the sky was gray with cloud cover so opaque that the sun had little chance of breaking through. Much of the world was widowed, sheltering in their homes, confined within four walls previously regarded as sanctuaries. Leaden with regular news reports of the pandemic sweeping across the world, the days stretch on, and our hearts and souls are heavier than hearts and souls should be.

Or perhaps not. In his book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Father Richard Rohr writes:

In much of urban and Western civilization today, with no proper tragic sense of life, we try to believe that it is all upward and onward–and by ourselves. It works for so few, and it cannot serve us well in the long run–because it is not true.

Rohr has a point here: we really don’t have a proper tragic sense of life. It is all upward and onward for most of us, most of the time. If our hearts and souls become heavy, we push on. If we feel as though we may be drown in the miry pits of our circumstances, we literally pull ourselves out by our own bootstraps. And we do it all independently, refusing to ask for or accept help. We are not a lamenting people.

At least not publicly. In private, we lament much more like the prophet Jeremiah who cried out:

My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within; my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city. [Lamentations 2:11]

In private, we are tormented by loss, by fear, by doubt and insecurity. In private, we often pour out our hearts, and our eyes fail from weeping. In private, we can sometimes be first class lamenters.

Perhaps both Richard Rohr and Nicolas Wolterstorff are right: collectively and publicly, we need a proper tragic sense of life and a teary worldview that allows us to see what dry-eyed we could not. In short, perhaps we should be a people of lamentation. Not a hand-wringing, self-pitying, complaining kind of people but a genuinely lamenting people. In his book, Movies are Prayers: How Films Voice Our Deepest Longings, Josh Larsen writes:

Christian lament is not simply complaint. Yes, it stares clear-eyed at awfulness and even wonders if God has gone…Yet at its fullest, biblical lament expresses sorrow over losing a world that was once good alongside a belief that it can be made good again. Lament isn’t giving up, it’s giving over. When we lift up our sorrow and our pain, we turn it over to the only one who can meet it: our God.

If we’re not particularly good at genuine lamenting, we’re even worse at accepting and understanding paradoxes like the one Larsen presents here: expressing sorrow over losing a world that was once good alongside a belief that it can be made good again. Today as more people die from Covid19 and quarantine measures persist, many may fear that with each passing day and each new positive test, the world that they once knew as good is being lost, bit by precious bit. To grieve and yet still believe that this world can be made good again? This is a paradox that challenges us. It’s generally either we’re going to hell in a hand basket OR don’t worry, be happy. It’s the rare public (or private) individual who can hold both of these realities in their minds and souls.

Yet, this is the foundational paradox of lamentation. And we need to both understand and practice it. We need to cry out in desperation for our world, for our communities, for our families, and for ourselves. And not just for pandemic reasons–for all sorts of loss and pain, collective and private. I take great solace in all those biblical figures who cried out to God, who laid their pain, anger, and despair at his feet in unabashed lamenation. These are the pillars of our faith, and they openly and regularly lamented.

Michael D. Guinan, a professor of Old Testament, Semitic languages and biblical spirituality at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley, California, believes that we have lost a healthy sense of lament in our personal prayer life and in our communal, liturgical life. He argues that even in the funeral rite–the only real context in which lament is generally practiced–we may short shrift it. He explains:

Some years back, after the changes in the rite of funerals, a family I knew lost a child in a boating accident. A lot of pressure was brought to bear to “celebrate the Mass of the Resurrection, to rejoice in his birth to new life.” About a year later, their suppressed grief almost tore the family apart. Again, we must not deny honest pain, nor jump too quickly from loss to acceptance and skip over the lamenting process. Christian faith does proclaim a message of hope, but death and grief are still real.

We have always lived in a world in which hope, grief, and death live as necessary neighbors. Today, our personal and pandemic worlds are no different. And this is why lamentation is not only an appropriate response to our circumstances, it is truly the only response. We can’t deny fear and pain and skip the lamenting process. Not now–not ever.

In the end, as difficult as it is, we must learn to regard lamentation as a means of both crying out in despair and as a means of proclaiming hope. Just the other day, I saw a look of real fear pass over my granddaughter’s face as her mother and I were talking about the recent pandemic reports. As an eleven-year-old, her only real fears should be whether she passes a math test or plays her flute solo without error. To see the fear of pandemic cloud her worldview–even for a moment–was heartbreaking. Still, I wish for her the same thing that I wish for myself, that I wish for the entire world: that we will be people of lamentation who support and pray for our fellow lamenters, that we will look at the world through tears and see those things that, dry-eyed, we could not see before.