Strange Lands

1.     Pete quoted the Church father Athanasius, who said that, ‘The Bible doesn’t always speak to us. Sometimes it speaks for us.’ The Books of Psalms and Lamentations are two obvious places where this happens. 

-        What situations have you experienced when you have particularly needed a psalm, or a prayer from the Bible to speak for you? What was the Scripture which gave you voice in that moment?

2.     Lament is a passionate expression of grief and sorrow. British people don’t tend to be very good at that – as Christians especially, we have been trained to hold our emotions in check. It can certainly feel improper to be less than polite when we pray. However, as C. S. Lewis wrote, “We must lay before him what is in us; not what ought to be in us.”

-        Have you ever been angry at God? 

-        What was your response? Did you pray, or did you find yourself turning away and avoiding God altogether?

-        Did you find you could be honest about how you felt?... Really honest?

3.     The Bible is full of expressions of lament. There are at least 50 Psalms (See Ps. 10, 13, 22, and many more), also the Books of Job, Habakkuk (15:18), Lamentations, and much of Jeremiah just for starters. As Pete said, “Lament is more than a technique for venting emotion. It is one of the fruits of a deepening spiritual life that has learned to wrestle honestly with God in prayer and even in worship.” Richard Foster says of the Lament Psalms, “They give us permission to shake our fist at God one moment and break into doxology the next.” As Leonard Cohen put it (in a song simply entitled, ‘Anthem’), “Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack, a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” 

-        Do you feel you need to always try and present God with a ‘perfect offering’, or are you comfortable letting the cracks show? How would it feel not to be so polite with God?

-        Are you naturally a Tigger or an Eeyore? (Or, perhaps a Piglet or Pooh?) Half full, or half empty?

-        Who do you find most annoying, super positive people, or those who notice the problems? Why might we need each other?

-        Would you prefer to live life in the primary colours of a Disney cartoon, or with the dark shadows (‘Chiaroscuro’) and light of a Caravaggio painting? (Do you think we have a choice?)

4.     Theologian Walter Brueggemann writes that, “When pain is brought to speech it turns to energy. When pain is not brought to speech it turns to despair.”

-        How do you bring pain to speech? Do you dance and sing along to “Spinning Around”, or “Don’t worry, he happy” or do you sit in a corner and hum along to Leonard Cohen or the Smiths?

-        How do we combine our hurt and our hope – to sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

-        Do you find yourself getting angry… a lot? How have you learned to process anger? 

Psalm 40:1-3 (NIV)

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;

he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in him.