Lamentation

Lamentation
Our guests at Manna House rarely complain. In fact, regular volunteers and those who come to help just for a time or two, often note the hopefulness of our guests. “They always talk about how they are blessed.” “They smile so much.” “They laugh so easily.” “They never complain about the weather, but just say they are happy to be alive.” These observations reflect the truth about guests at Manna House. Our guests rarely voice a “woe is me.”
But it is also true that this isn’t the whole story. Our guests face many hardships, and a life of poverty and being on the streets take their toll. Our guests are much more vulnerable to illness, accident, violence, and death that those with a more physically comfortable and secure life. In the past months we have lost to death, Leroy, Michael, Earl, Sarah, Roosevelt, Frank, Carol, probably Rick, and now Willie.
Last week, I happened into some conversations with a few guests about the suffering they face. What they shared went beyond the usual challenges of finding a place that is warm and safe to stay, getting a shower, getting healthy food to eat (plenty of soup kitchens serve food, but most places serve food guaranteed to create high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and fat). 
One guest told of how after months of trying he still can’t find any work. Some said the bitter cold was getting them down. One shared that when he had come in the house he was stiff and almost frozen. Another pointed out that he’s got deteriorating hips, a leg that alternates between numbness and burning pain, and on top of that seizures, that he has been told will eventually kill him. “I guess I have a lot of complaints,” he concluded.
I responded, “Doesn’t sound like complaints to me; sounds like lamentation.”
“What’s lamentation?” several said at the same time.
“Divinely inspired bitching,” I stated, “it’s in the Bible.”
“Really?”
“Yes, there’s a whole book called Lamentations.”
“Read me some.”
At that I got out my phone, got my “on-line” Bible up and going, and began to read from Lamentations chapter three.
“I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath. God has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, God has turned God’s hand against me again and again, all day long. God has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. God has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. God has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead. God has walled me in so I cannot escape; God has weighed me down with chains. Even when I call out or cry for help, God shuts out my prayer. God has barred my way with blocks of stone; God has made my paths crooked.”
“That’s me,” said the guest who had worried that he was complaining too much.
“Me too,” several others agreed.
I offered that this is an honest book. It doesn’t let God off the hook for the suffering that is going on. The question raised is not, “Where is God in the midst of such suffering?” Lamentations goes further and ponders, “Why is God doing this to me?”
The guest said, “I’m going to have to read more from this book.”
And with that our conversation ended.
I’ve been thinking about this conversation; mulling it over. I remembered that I asked a guest once how he was doing. His response was, “I’m lower than whale shit.”
I kept reading in Lamentations 3, and the author keeps on going, like our guests keep on going. As well aware as they are of their vulnerability and suffering, they have a faith like the faith expressed in the Book of Lamentations. It is an honest faith, not afraid to put to God some hard questions.
Only this kind of faith that boldly states the reality of the suffering, the reality that even God seems opposed to the person who is suffering, can hold on in the midst of suffering.
The author of lamentations continues, “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’ The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
Our guests do not accept their suffering as God’s will. They know their lives and the world are not as they should be. All of them carry deep grief from loss of family, jobs, home, health. They feel the injustices, and get not only sad but angry. Their keeping on is not resignation; it is rather a faithful resistance to suffering as incompatible finally with God’s will.