Laurie J. Cameron The Power of Self-Compassion writes about how to care for yourself in crisis. The first step is one she calls “mindfulness.” By mindfulness, she means being aware of how you are feeling and being able to acknowledge those feelings. Though she does not put it in so blunt a way, her first step comes down to this: “This sucks!” or “This hurts!” or “I’m in pain!”
I was recently on a group-text where some parents were sharing the number of activities that our senior-high students were not able to participate in because of Covid-19. One parent concluded by saying something like “I know other people are experiencing much greater losses, so I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining.” I responded with, “Others may be experiencing other forms of loss … And … it’s appropriate to say about the loss being experienced by our students by saying, ‘This sucks!’” And several parents replied with “This sucks!”
This simple, yet significant, practice is so important. Diane Langberg in Suffering and the Heart of God writes about trauma. We might debate whether the Covid-19 crisis is clinically traumatic. But, her words about trauma carry truth about our present, nevertheless (165):
Trauma is the experience of the self, silenced. The words of the victim, the feelings of the victim, the thoughts of the victim, and the choices of the victim are silenced … Normally when we hurt we say “ouch” about even small things. The trauma victim’s ouch is completely shut down. Their opinions, ideas, thoughts, or feelings are completely disregarded and irrelevant–whether it is a war, a rape, or a tsunami.
Suffering can shut down our natural “Ouch!” That’s why voicing this “Ouch!” to yourself, to God and to others can be so helpful.
Yet, we Christians often seem reluctant to do so. Peter Scazzero, in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Updated Edition (44) writes this:
…most Christians do not think they have permission to consider their feelings, to name then, or express them openly. This applies especially to the more “difficult” feelings of fear, sadness, and anger…When we deny our pain, losses, and feelings year after year, we become less and less human…
The biblical word for this is lament. The book of Psalms is filled with lament–songs and prayers in which a person or people cry out to God with striking “This sucks!” We’re often uncomfortable reading these laments, or even using them in our personal or corporate prayers. Walter Brueggemann comments (Spirituality of the Psalms, 25-26):
“It is a curious fact that the church has, by and large, continued to sing songs of orientation in a world increasingly experienced as disoriented. That may be commendable. It could be that such relentlessness is an act of bold defiance in which these psalms of order and reliability are flung in the face of the disorder…It is my judgment that this action of the church is less a defiance guided by faith and founded in the good news, and much more a frightened, numb denial and deception that does not want to acknowledge or experience the disorientation of life…I think that serious religious use of the complaint psalms has been minimal because we have believed that faith does not mean to acknowledge and embrace negativity. We have thought that acknowledgment of negativity was somehow an act of unfaith.
To lament is not to be faith-less. To lament is to be faith-full. To lament is to believe that God is ….
big enough to handle our bawling,
merciful enough to hold our moaning,
caring enough to long for our crying, and
sympathetic enough to embrace our sorrow.
This is why Jesus’ cry from the cross is so significant: “I thirst.” Jesus’ voice has been silenced. His opinions, ideas, thoughts, and feelings have been completely disregarded. And, so, in this moment, he moans. He voices what has been silenced. He acknowledges his need.
Today, take a moment to say “Ouch” or even “This sucks!” Encourage others to say so as well. And as they do, don’t rush to say, “It’s going to be OK” or “It’s not that bad.” Just hold that pain with them, as they hold your pain with you. There will be time to provide a wider perspective, even as this series of posts will. But be sure there’s space enough for yourself and others to also just say, “I thirst.”
