My Lament: My Gift to God

Ministerial context:

As an immigrant woman of Color, I can say in no uncertain terms that I understand what is meant by the term historical trauma. But historical trauma is not something unique to only people of color, immigrants, or minorities. In fact, it is a condition of the entire human experience. Even we Christians understand or should understand what is meant by this term. It is a term that defines our sorrow, our suffering, our collective grief. Yet sometimes the church seems not to see this suffering; it seeks only to affirm a joyous jubilation. It does not like to admit of pain. Yet we know from the Psalms that the Divine Heart sees our suffering and acknowledges it. The Word of God has recorded it in Scripture, as if to remind us that we are not to ignore this sufferingfor it is in suffering that we can turn more fully to God. It is through lament that we renew our call to the Divine Heart with so much fervor.

I currently serve at Community United Methodist Church, a congregation whose membership is predominantly White, set in a community of more than 40% mixed people of Color. Prior to coming to this congregation less than one year ago, I served for one year in a similar setting at Epworth United Methodist Church. Before going to Epworth, I served for seven years at Village United Methodist Church in a congregation that was completely made up of people of Color from the Caribbean Diaspora. Both Village UMC and Epworth UMC were located in the South East District of the Florida Annual Conference. The South East District is a considerably diverse district. Village UMC was discontinued as a congregation the year after I was appointed to Epworth.

I now live in a predominantly White community where the neighbors are not friendly and have only expressed curiosity about whether my family plans to stay in the area. All of these congregations have had a significant decrease in membership and resources over a number of years prior to my appointment. All of them fear not being able to continue as congregations. None of them is willing to embrace a shift in thinking or existing. All of them have people who carry deep wells of pain and many instances of transmitting the pain because there is no infrastructure to transform it.

Whats needed in these congregations is an infrastructure of lament. They have no way of processing their trauma in a holy and religious way. They seem to be cut off from the very Word of God that permits them to express their pain.

Why this topic?

The issue of creating space for lament as a part of worship is significant because everyone grieves, everyone has anxiety, everyone says like the Psalmist, in Psalm 42: Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man. For thou, O God, art my strength:...…scholarly works, I learned some hard truths about my own heritage as a person of Color regarding grief. I learned through my own experiences how to better be with those who are reeling from the effects of grief and trauma. I discovered gems of how to craft language that challenges established assumptionsand, more importantly, how to gift this language to the hurting. Moreover, reading Psalm 137 and the Book of Ruth through the experiences of the Caribbean Diaspora was an eye-opening experience even for me who usually employ a hermeneutics of suspicion as a theological tool. Through this work, I came into close proximity to other women of faith who share a similar pain and whose stories run parallel to mine around the churchs lack of infrastructure to create room for the acknowledgement of trauma, to create space for lamentation.

Because there is no path in place, the pain that should have been processed and transformed, instead, was used to hold the pained hostage and was transmitted as it came out in unhealthy ways in their lives.

The scholars that I read include Wil Gafney, Bailey, Miguel De la Torre among several others. Their writings helped me frame my thoughts and form them into communicable expression.

Yet there is more work to be done. Areas for further research desperately needed include helping people negotiate and respond to the before and after binary that trauma hurls us into; developing study materials for church-wide small groups; and creating a sermon series on why it shouldnay, mustbe acceptable to admit…