Please see me--Some thoughts on Lamentations 1:12

“All you who pass this way,

look and see

is any sorrow like the sorrow

inflicted on me…”

--Lamentations 1:12

Is this not the cry of all who are in pain?  Look!  Look at this!  Have you ever seen anything like this?  See!  See my pain. See me.  Please look and see me, see what has happened to me. Has anyone ever like this before? 

See! See what happened!  Please.  Think of the child with her first skinned knee rushing to her mother; is she not calling out for more than healing or medical attention?  Think of the drama of that cry, those tears.  Isn’t her cry also a cry pleading for attention. A cry demanding to be seen.  See!  See what has happened to me.  Has anything like this ever happened before?

And, isn’t it true? Isn’t every pain the first of its kind? Each of us is an individual, unlike any other person ever made.  I cannot feel your pain, no matter how empathetic I am.  You cannot feel my pain. I cannot know what it means to you to be hurt, to be lonely, to be broken hearted or broken armed?  In Merchant of Venice, Shylock famously proclaims a universal connection through suffering: If you prick us, do we not bleed?  And yes, there are universal aspects, we do all bleed when pricked, or when we stumble and skin our knees…

But, my skinned knee is not yours.  And that is the point. I still remember that desperate cry of as my children ran toward me or my wife calling, Mommy!  And wanting only to be held, kissed, comforted, acknowledged.  Even after the ointments and bandages were applied, they still wanted to retell the story of their fall, of their pain. Wanted to know that someone had seen their suffering, their sorrow.

We all want to be seen, individually; not as a member of a group, an ethnic identity, an orientation, a gender.  Not even just as people.  What is Shylock’s demand but a cry that he too is human! That isn’t enough.  Deep down inside, we want to be seen as individuals, as one of a kind creations—because that is what we each and everyone one of us are.  We are each of us one of a kind creations, and the world would not, and will not be the same without us. Without our lives, our joys, our struggles, our sorrows.

Every time someone cries out for rights, for equality, for justice, they are crying out—look at me! Look and see, I am alive. I am real.  And no one has ever suffered like this, ever loved like this, ever felt like this before, because no one has ever been ME before…

That is the lesson I hear in the cry of the author of lamentations. A call to wake up. A call to open my eyes and see, to look around and realize each day that –as it says in Revelations-- God truly does “make all things new.” (21:5) Open your eyes and see.

A heart to understand -some more thoughts on Deuteronomy

“But until today the Lord has not given you a heart

to understand , eyes to see, ears to hear…”

–Deuteronomy 29:3

This Sunday we are having a reading from Deuteronomy, and it has given me a pause to think more about this book that I suspect is seldom read all the way through.  This Sunday at mass we will hear Moses speak of the new prophet God is sending (18:15-20).  In answer to their prayers and their fears, God is promising a new prophet (like Moses) who will speak to the people for God. Moses seems to be referring to Joshua --who will take his place leading God's people-- but this reference may also be seen Christologically as a reference to Jesus. But in the context of Deuteronomy, it begs the question: why do the people need a human leader if they have God? And the Deuteronomical answer seems to be: Because God is too much. They have seen His terrible fire and heard His fearful voice from the mountain, and they want an interlocutor. Someone to stand between them and God and speak to them for God (for their own protection).  Fearing for their lives, they have even prayed God will spare them His presence:

“Never let me hear the voice of the Lord my God

or see His great fire again, or I shall die” (18:16).

But why? According to the story, God has just guided (or driven) His people through the desert wilderness for 40 years, protecting them, miraculously providing food and water (even from a rock) and yet they are afraid of Him. Because –they seem to sense—that even now their eyes are not ready for such a vision and their ears unprepared for such a voice.  They need something a little less awesome, something/someone a little more familiar; Moses is about to die and they are afraid to be left alone with God. That is the kind of writing that interests me. If this were fiction, we would be astonished at the imaginative power of such a writer.  But, we maintain that it is not fiction; it is (on some historical, spiritual, theological level) the absolute truth.  Wow.  What an odd book.

And here I am thinking about it on a Saturday morning as I finish my cold coffee and last crust of burnt toast, and wondering myself whether I yet have eyes to see or hears to hear, a heart to understand.

This question of the eyes and the ears and the heart, it fascinates me.  It seems, on one level, as Moses hands the people off to Joshua, that he is saying to them: you weren’t ready before, because “until today” you didn’t have the ears or eyes or heart, but now…  And that made me wonder what Moses might be referring to. What is it that possibly has changed that might make the people better prepared for the presence of God?  And it occurred to me, what is this whole book about: the law. God’s law.

Is it possible that God is saying that with the law we have eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart to understand, but without it we are blind, deaf and ignorant?  That the reason the law is so important to God and His prophets is that it is through the law that our eyes and ears will be opened.  This vision of the law – not as something restrictive, imposing burdens on us, but as a gift to help us prepare for the presence of God; as a kind of practice or exercise to get us in shape for that big day when we stand before Him. That is how I have come to see God’s law. I think that is what I am learning from reading these texts and listening to their fearful and glorious message.  

There is another interesting passage in chapter 29 that might support this idea.  Speaking almost like a tour guide, Moses says:

“…the nations through whom we have passed. You have seen their abominations and their idols made of wood and stone, silver and gold…” (29:15-16)

            One can almost hear him saying: Remember all those exotic people and those fascinating lands we passed through on our journey? On your right see the wooden idols, on your left please note the human sacrifice of children, and Oh –look there! See, what a perfect example of an abomination all decked out in silver and gold!

            It is as if God has taken them on this 40 year journey (in which their sandals never wore out, (cf. 29:4) as a way to educate and form them into His people and until now they were blind, until now they were unable to hear or understand, but now “today” they are graduates ready to receive their diplomas from the school of God’s journey –the school of wandering—and their diploma is the law.

            But, like many graduates, the chosen people (after 40 years, you’d think they’d have Ph.Ds) still feel anxious and unprepared for what lies ahead… "Until today" they were not ready…
            As for me, even this morning, I’m still not so sure. But I do know this –I want to keep reading.  And I want to get ready.