@Mae

Whoa! Can’t wait to hear God’s response to your psalm. Please keep us abreast! LOL. Specifically,I wonder what His take will be on the “now I am born again from their love” and “from somewhere I found the strength” remarks. It seems God gets no credit for your survival. Sista, I, too, feel ’some kinda way’ about how God allows certain things to happen but I don’t know that I would challenge God to “man up” as you put it. Yeah, we may have the freedom of speech to go there with God but I seriously doubt He has “reasons to worry” about our venting. If God, as I understand Him to be, can be distressed over your remarks, then I need to rethink some things. Am I to believe God is NOT LOVE? And, by the way, please forgive me but I can’t resist asking these three questions: Are you merely POed with God? Do you hate God? What does God represent to you now? Just wondering.

I just got to say, WOW!!! I wish I was so articulate and poetic.

I like Dr. Weems’ reminder in the previous post that each lament has an underlying praise. This encourages me to stay honest and transparent before God.

Dear Psalm-Sistah,
Thank you for giving voice to the lament in so many hearts. It calls to mind Lamentations 3, Jeremiah 20:14-18, Job chapters 3, 10, 24…

Job 27:1   Job again took up his discourse and said:
2 “As God lives, who has taken away my right,
and the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter,
3 as long as my breath is in me
and the spirit of God is in my nostrils,
4 my lips will not speak falsehood,
and my tongue will not utter deceit.
5 Far be it from me to say that you are right;
until I die I will not put away my integrity from me.
6 I hold fast my righteousness, and will not let it go;
my heart does not reproach me for any of my days.
 

Powerful…

This is one of the most powerful texts I’ve ever read. It’s so raw, frightening and honest. Thank you.

Well, my sistah Mae, the Lord calls for the “wailing women”, the “most skillful of them”, and you have certainly answered the call. Amen. I believe wailing and mourning with such Godly sorrow and blatant honesty, in the end, brings one comfort. Sometimes we just gotta purge ourselves of the anger, the grief, the pain so that our eyes and hearts will be opened to acknowledging the new mercies. Wail on, sistah Mae … wail on.

You question your faith a lot. I can tell. You doubt its accuracy or wonder if its a sham. Yet you are a minister. You are God’s mouthpiece. If you hate Him so much, step down and shut up.

Amazing!!!

If Mae’s lament is so amazing why do we sit still in church after church on Sunday as the members scream behind the pastor its already done? If its already done, why do 150 million people around the globe live on less than a dollar a day. Its already done in my estimation are the cries of lazy people that want to avoid the turbulent waters of struggle and who have lost their backbones and who are perpetual children who want God to tie their shoe strings.

What the hell does the constant chant “Excellent- Excellent” is his name has to do with the history of our lives- sounds to me like a Jim Crow choir shouting excellent as they celebrate the soft contours of their lives while making others lie on hard beds. Where is the history of our struggle in this chant? I am still trying to be in church where the pews mark my rear end with the hardness of hearts that breath fire and damnation on suffering people around the globe while chanting this is where I need to be because this is where I am right now without touching the implications of that statement and how much it supports the status quo and dismisses change.

Honey, you might be where you need to be as a Black woman or human being in a dehumanizing technocracy. But, I am not- I refuse to stay in my place. I know from my seat in history as a Black woman that it is not already done and if I don’t raise my arms to do it, then whatever comes my way is the history that I make through my complicity. Not to mention all this God talk about what God told me… Its strange I think I am a good person but I keep trying to hear God but I can only hear the loud voices of human ambition disguised in divine terms.

By the way, Mae’s lament is not about pretty words. Its about prophetic truths that turn our worlds upside down and rattle us in deep places that make us unable to be at peace with things as they are.

Having said this Mae, your lament is amazingily courageous! Yes, you can poet with me anytime.

Ruby Sales

Dear Renita,

Your powerful post on lamentation struck deep in my heart when I read it and when I sat in church this morning hearing if you love God smile! How can you frown in the face of what God is doing for you. I thought this is what Renita means. if we cut ourselves off from lamenting how do we touch the roots, victories and travail of our journey/lives as individuals? How do we understand what must be understood by and by- how do we tell the story of how we overcome which is God’s story. Renita, your sermon on lamentations scooped me up and added another dimemsion to how I talk about the world and God in the world.

Amen. Blessed be. and Grace!

Don’t forget March 29,2010.

Ruby Sales