A Lament

                 From on high hath he sent fire into my bones, and it prevaileth against them; He hath spread
                 a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: He hath made me desolate and faint all the day.
                                                                                             Hebrew Bible, Lamentations 1:13
                                                                                             American Standard Version

Sometimes only an old word, an ancient one, will do.

     The trials and tribulations of the world come at me fast – and faster – these days. Ads for speedy Internet and wireless devices slide through my mail slot or pop up before my eyes. Seems like I'm not supposed to miss any Breaking News.  Is my broadband Internet access fast enough? Is my computer's speed sluggish? Do I need to update Adobe Flash Player for “superior HD video performance with hardware acceleration of video”?

     All this news disturbs my equilibrium. I remind myself how lucky I am – and vow not to complain about little things. The American Red Cross emails me graphics-enhanced browser windows describing international needs.  Oh, these poor people, I think, as I click Donate in the lower-right-corner box. Right out of my Inbox and, hopefully, out of my mind.

     But some events can't be dismissed so easily. Like Timothy Robson's church story. After I surfed last week to find an example for my post, Speaking Volumes, I continued reading his blog.  That's when a heart-wrenching post grabbed my attention, A Year Ago – EACC Fire Remembered.

     Timothy writes from Cleveland: “It was a year ago today in the early hours of the morning that fire destroyed Euclid Avenue Congregational Church of the United Church of Christ, which was my church home (and employer) for twenty-seven years. The fire began during a freak thunder and lightning storm late the night before.” After detailing the trauma, he tells how it occurred the week before Palm Sunday, a high point in the church year. Then he adds: “The impact to me personally was considerable, since the church’s organ was lost, as was the choir’s music library and much of my own personal organ music library.”

     The church's pipe organ – the hymnals and choir music – his personal music library! Stunned, I slumped in my desk chair. It was like being punched in the stomach. I related personally to his loss. How would I have coped?

     Several days later, I visited my music closet. I leafed through paper music editions which sit undisturbed for months now that I'm retired.  Piles of yellowed memories. The Cesar Franck's Trois Chorals pour Grand Orgue – I performed the A Minor Choral on my master's recital at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City (aka The Church of the Celestial Snooze to students). The Liturgical Year: Orgelbuechlein by Johann Sebastian Bach. To hold my place at the practice organ at the Schleswig-Holstein Orgelschule, in Luebeck, Germany, I'd pencilled “Zueruck [back] in 5 Minueten” on the inside cover. George Frideric Handel's MESSIAH, an orchestral reduction score for organ,  a 10.5 x 14 inch monstrosity, impossible to flip pages and almost as impossible to play. It cost $16.95 in 1976. Probably priceless today.

     It's not just another hurricane, another earth quake, another accident when some one's tragedy hits home. It's not so easy to send off a donation, an email or even a written note. I hunt for proper words, but only find overused sentiments that don't seem appropriate - too limited, too shallow, too easy. That's when I seek the help of antiquity. What do the old books have to say?

     It is in the Hebrew Bible, what Christians used to call the Old Testament, that I find words that suit, poetry that digs into my worldly self, expressions that ring true. Especially in Lamentations, where the poet wrestles with the destruction of the Holy City of Jerusalem. How could God let that happen? Wasn't the Temple so sacred that it was forever protected?

     My contemporary self no longer accepts glib explanations from external authorities. I'm left to excavate my own layers of doubt, to sift through the accumulated silt of lectures, readings and sermons - to sink into the depth of my Self as Meister Eckhardt taught back in the early 14th century.

     In the end, I commune with the wisdom of the ancients.  The sadness I feel for Timothy Robson's loss leads me to the poetry of journeys lived in other times, in other places, in other unknowns. Here I find the ancient word that describes the human anguish at living in the mystery. The word leads me to the way of all shared loss and pain, historic and current. I lament.