Our Parish finances are okay. Our people are hanging in there. We’ve found a rhythm to online worship and are in fact so comfortable with this new normal we are changing things up this week for Pentecost. We’re adapting and yet it is still really hard. Every few days it seems I am reminded of what isn’t. Today one of our people is in the ICU. I can’t go pray over him. I can’t have a cup of tea with his family. I can’t sit with the other choir members at rehearsal tonight and tell stories about him. As well as we have done, as clear as we are on why we are waiting to gather (because we love our neighbors as an act of faith), it is still so hard to not be the church in the ways we are used to being church.
In this struggle I have turned to the Psalms. In seminary I learned about the Psalms of lament, written by the faithful crying out in times of anxiety, fear, loss, pain, suffering, and doubt. Lament and all of those associated emotions are part of our faith life and the Psalms remind us that even struggle and pain are holy and worth taking to God.
Psalm 13 has been especially helpful as I keep my feet steady on the path of waiting, of loving, and of giving up what has been so that what will be can be. This is often thought of as a prayer on the cusp of mourning and rejoicing, which is where I find myself so often these days. The repeated words how long are especially meaningful now as we wait for this pandemic to end.
How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord, because you have dealt bountifully with me.
May you know all the emotions of these strange times to be holy and may you find ways to name and claim God with you through it all.
-Eilidh
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