Lamentations

Wednesday, October 21, 2001 -- Week of Proper 24, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 988)
Psalms 38 (morning) 119:25-48 (evening)
Lamentations 2:8-15
1 Corinthians 15:51-58
Matthew 12:1-14

While reading the passage from Lamentations my mind went to the pictures that all of us have seen of the suffering of people in violent and war-torn places. The pictures of mothers holding a dying child in their arms. Of refugees walking with stunned faces with nothing but what they can carry from their ruined homes. Of fires and smoke and bodies where a living community used to be. Of the obscene angle of naked bodies blown apart by ordinance. Of the forlorn look in the face of an abandoned orphan.

"My eyes are spent with weeping; my stomach churns; my bile is poured out on the ground because of the destruction of my people, because infants and babes faint in the streets of the city."

These words of Lamentations date from around 586 BCE. In almost 2,700 years of human civilization we have not learned enough to heal these images. They are as new as today's news. In Sudan and Chad, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and elsewhere, violence and disaster bring ruin, horror and starvation to millions today just as in Jerusalem in the 6th century BCE. "The infants and babes... faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers' bosom."

One feels a certain helplessness in the face of it all. Yet the demand of those eyes that look at us through the camera images is unyielding; the poetry of Lamentations is insistent. What can we do to make a compassionate response? How can we hold them in our heart, in God's heart? How can we offer our resources to respond to their need?

Lowell

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Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas