I was struggling on Saturday. Suddenly I found myself with no tech people and no musician for morning worship. I was trying to call through the lists of folks in our parish who could play for morning worship and getting lots of nos. It was Father’s Day, Pride, and Juneteenth so people were busy. I wrote a lament about how hard it has been to constantly juggle and adapt worship over the course of the pandemic and to still have to figure out how to make it work any given Sunday. I posted my lament in a facebook affinity group for clergy. I call it a lament because it was written as a naming of my struggle, while knowing that God would still be praised no matter what come Sunday. This echoes the patterns of the psalms of lament.

One person who I actually know in real life posted a simple comment of “ugh, Just ugh. That is hard.” It was perfect. I felt seen and heard and not judged. But before too long I ended up deleting my post. Comments questioning my choice to broadcast worship, and people saying they did it every week so why was I complaining made me so angry.

I just needed a safe space to express my struggle. Not a huge struggle, but a real one. I thought I would be safe among my community, but as always on the internet someone has to have it worse, someone else has to judge you, and others have to weigh in with unhelpful advice. I am so grateful for that one friend who got it. Who understood my lament and came alongside me in that moment.

It is hard to find safe spaces to name struggle these days. I think so many people are hurting after 2 years of unexpected change from the pandemic, the stress of political turmoil, the unchecked violence in our nation, the effects of the climate crisis, and so much more. We need spaces to lament, to lift up our struggles and turn to God and we need people who simply see us and say ugh with us. Who, even if they don’t totally understand our struggle, see it and honor it. So the next time you see someone lamenting in person or on the internet, take a moment and set aside that helpful advice, that wanting to express how much worse it is for you, or to tell them they are wrong to struggle and simply stand with them and maybe even offer up a holy ugh in response.

-Eilidh