This Present Absence

In the Psalms, we have prayers and songs offered up to God that shatter our conceptions of what communication with the Divine should look like. Known as psalms of lament, they rage against God, questioning his care and his love.

Lament, complaint, tears are all worship when offered to God, and we need to grasp this very real heritage as an essential part of our faith. Sometimes, faith is a refusal to release the God who demands that you do just that (Gen 32:26). To lose our tears, to lose lament in the name of faith is to follow a God that refuses us in the midst of our heartache.

My professor recently asked those of us in his class to compose our own psalms of lament. At first, I was hesitant to do so -- a sort of holy darkness has taken up residence within me, and some days, my heart is simply too broken to share with others, much less God.

I wrote one nonetheless. And I thought I would offer it to God in the midst of your company. Because I need my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Great God of Absence, hear my sorrow.
Words fail my heart just as you have,
Still my lips dare to give voice to the anguish of my soul.
I will shout to the nothingness of your presence.

You have left me, forsaken me
In accordance with a promise you could not keep:
You who are the great Immanuel
Are anything but -- you are not with me.

But still I search for you.
Because I cannot escape the iron-cold grip,
The terrible beauty
That men call your Love.

Dust of the Road

Karl Barth is arguably the most prominent theologian of the twentieth century. His most famous work is a massive, fourteen-volume project titled Church Dogmatics. You can buy it for me here: http://amzn.to/qbRIbE :-)

Fourteen books that attempt to explain the Bible and the One to whom it points.

One critic took Barth to task for his audacious undertaking:

"The angels laugh at old Karl. They laugh at his trying to capture the truth about God in a book on dogmatics. They laugh, because volume follows volume, each thicker than the last, and as they laugh they say to each other: 'Look! There he goes with his [wheel]barrow full of volumes on dogmatics.'"

Why do writers dare to contain with ink that which cannot be contained? Why are readers drawn into these stories as if they were their own?

I'm as guilty as anyone. I write like a madman as I chart my own meanderings across the landscape of the Divine. My library is threatening to overtake our house. What's going on?

I think I just can't help but be drawn to these stories. Life can get lonely sometimes, and I love it when I can share the experiences of other road-weary travelers. They show me breathtaking views I might not have otherwise seen. We revel in one another's joy and hold each other when our hearts are broken.

Of course, the company of another human being in the same room only adds to this beauty and mystery.

Their presence serves as a constant reminder that my story isn't the only one out there, and that maybe I shouldn't take myself so seriously. Because I have a lot to see and even more to learn.

By the way, the critic with the angelic laughter? It was Karl Barth.