Lamentation

Here is a link to today’s post from The Visual Commentary on Scripture. It’s an introductory video to this week’s theme of Lamentation.

A friend of mine has been undertaking a PhD looking at the theme of lament in religious culture. A big question is whether in our contemporary culture we have lost the ability to see lament as anything other than a negative sign of weakness. Do we have a problem as Christians of being overly praise focused? Are we trying to airbrush the things that really hurt and ache, in favour of a stoic self-help culture of “pull yourself together”?

Clearly there is a balance to be struck between praise and lament. It’s a question of recognising honest feelings and experiences in life and giving expression to them. Luckily for us, the Psalms provide a huge variety of both lament and praise, so we’ve plenty to choose from.

Here’s a setting of Psalm 40, which seems to combine both lament and praise within one Psalm.