During the season of Lent, the Lutheran Church of Honolulu holds a Lenten prayer service on Wednesday evenings. A theme is chosen each year. This year’s theme is “Lament”. For each service, a person is asked to share their thoughts on the theme expressed through original writings and poems.
On Wednesday, March 12, 2025, my wife, Cathy Baptista, presented us with a beautiful heartfelt essay and poem that expressed her own experiences with this deeply felt emotion:
Our theme for Lent is Lament. But what is “lament”? The dictionary says that it is to cry out, to mourn, to grieve, to weep, to complain.
As a young Christian, I thought that all the bad in my life would be wiped away. I guess I never really looked closely at the Psalms, the Book of Lamentations, or even the words of Jesus, because there is an awful lot of complaining, anguish, and sorrow going on.
Not too much moaning and groaning was allowed when I was growing up. You just dealt with it. Even at its most intense, it was quiet. I was closest to my father, and when he passed away at the age of 66, it was awful. It wasn’t fair. He had served our family and the community faithfully, he’d just retired, I still needed him. My grandmother came to the hospital, held his hand, and quietly cried; it was heart wrenching in its quietness. We were together in quiet lament.
It is not always that way. I’d read about people loudly wailing or keening upon the death of someone or during bad times, but I’d never experienced it until my cousin’s grandson suddenly passed away of natural causes at work. My cousin’s wife, a mostly Native Hawaiian woman of great faith, let it all out at the funeral. I know what keening sounds like now, because I will never forget it. I and everyone there felt it deeply.
To Lament, to cry out to God in Holy Lament. That is our theme for the Lenten season. I’ll close with this poem:
Lament? I know lament.
The hopelessness, the anguish,
The weeping, the raging!
Why is this happening!
Why now!
What did I do to deserve this?
I’m suffering,
Is anyone there?
Who can I talk to
About this terrible state of affairs!
Where is the complaint office!
It’s not fair!
Doesn’t anyone hear me?
Doesn’t anyone care?
I am alone.
I despair.
But wait,
What did Pr. Jeff say?
God walks with us.
God is with me,
Right here, right now.
Oh God, hear me!
I am suffering!
I need you!
I feel your presence,
You give me hope.
Amen.
Cathy Baptista 3/4/2025
Thank you for sharing!