Dear Siblings in Christ,
This past Sunday we proclaimed the good news that when we allow ourselves to name and lament the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf, the grace of Jesus overflows among us, right in the middle of the chaos, bringing joy in repentance and deliverance from evil, forming us as a community of faith, hope, and love for the life of the world.
As I mentioned in my sermon, most of us find ourselves uncomfortable and unpracticed with lament. “I know I need to grieve, but I don’t know how,” I hear a lot. I’m convinced that part of what we need to learn to do is simply feel our feelings of rage and sadness over what is happening in our world and in our lives.
But that’s easier said than done, because feeling our feelings is not the same as expressing our feelings, or thinking our feelings, or acting on our feelings. I’ve been reading Hanna Reichel’s excellent book For Such a Time as This: An Emergency Devotional, and they remark on why it can be so difficult for us to actually feel our feelings:
Feelings are responses to how the world affects you. Being affected can be uncomfortable. It can be overwhelming and scary. It alerts us to the fact that we are vulnerable, finite, and dependent on others. Because we like to limit our vulnerability, we tend to limit, avoid, or repress the feelings it causes. But doing so makes us no less vulnerable, it only makes us numb and brittle.
Allowing ourselves to feel our feelings and lament evil is part of how we resist the forces of death in our day, beloved. This week I encourage you to give yourself ample time and space to feel your rage and grief, and use the scriptural resources of lament to hold and direct those feelings toward God in prayer.
There are other things to do, of course, but most of the time feeling our feelings in the first order of business. May you find grace for this.
In Christ,
Fr. Ben
