I have really enjoyed reading about the Psalter and the various purposes for which the psalms were written. The lament psalm speaks into a very important tradition of the people of faith - the tradition of truly engaging in relationship with God. This engagement involves, at times, holding God responsible for the pain and suffering that we encounter in this world, which is God's creation. Dr. Lester writes that, "given God's history with God's people, the psalmist is comfortable charging God with 'dereliction of duty' and unabashedly urges a favorable response." Who among us has not had a relationship with a friend or family member that hasn't at one point or another culminated in a "come to Jesus" moment - where we have to call out the other for some slight or wrongdoing. So it is, I believe, with God. But what's so refreshing about this type of public complaint is that it's done as an act of worship. Barry Bandstra explains that this type of psalm always moves from "personal complaint to anticipation of salvation" (Bandstra, p.384). In so doing, the psalmist grounds her frustration/lament/complaint/disagreement in faith that God is still powerful, God is still loving, and God is still God.
Hear our voice, Authority;
let our shouts and chants pierce your ears.
Come out from behind your walls,
from behind your lecterns and daises
meet our angry stares.
Remember your City;
the electors who voted
for you to be strong,
strongly do we cry,
wishing only for our votes to matter.
Authority! Who has taken
authority?
When our water is shut off,
can they hear our parched cry?
From our chapped lips,
our coughs rise up asking for a drink.
The Powers and Principalities turn off our taps,
letting our arrears fill their own cups.
Their cups runneth over,
they are sated by our debts.
Yet, Authority! There is Power in our Voices.
Our voices reflect your Authority.
Your power is magnified by the very drumbeat
that remembers
and calls forth
the promise of your promise,
to serve us, your people.
Authority! Give us water!
Quench our thirst, heed our dry coughs.
Don't let the sick go without healing;
wholeness you offer to the broken through your living water.
Turn on our taps and let us drink.
Let us gather in our kitchens,
around the well and the fountain let our community be as One.
Let not this authority circumscribe your Authority.
Let your Authority drown out the authorities,
as the parted waters drowned out those authorities,
so long ago.
In my work in public health in the city of Detroit, I have encountered a lot of resentment and frustration among community groups who acutely experience the lack of public health infrastructure available for people in need. So it is to give voice to this shared complaint that I offer this communal lament, which I hope, speaks as much to the situation of water shut offs in Detroit as it can to any number of social injustices enacted upon people by the Powers and Principalities of this world. While I pray this lament to God for God's justice, I also pray it to the City Authorities who have, in many cases, acquiesced to Emergency Management and state takeover. May we have rivers of justice flow forth once more! For more information on the water shut offs in Detroit, check out: http://detroitwaterbrigade.org
4 comments:
I absolutely love your work here. It is a timely topic - and you approached it in a manner that is both specific to the circumstance and general enough for many to find space. (Particularly with the various types of water crises in so many places). I appreciate that you discussed the worship as the context for the psalms. In your poem I can hear a corporate call to a community to be the Authority (hands and feet?) of change in this situation, framing it in a worship context for me. I appreciated the way you used the form to speak to your context. I read your use of Authority as embodying multiple entities (political, communal/societal, spiritual) and wonder if you could say more about how you used that word in your poem? Really enlightening work -- thanks for the opportunity to engage. Peace!
This is absolutely excellent! Thanks for sharing!
What struck me most in your psalm was the first stanza, particularly:
"Remember your City;
the electors who voted
for you to be strong,
strongly do we cry,
wishing only for our votes to matter."
Certainly we can see parallels between the Authority remembering his city and God remembering his people. What I noted of particular interest was the part about electors voting. Whereas we do, in the USA at least, vote for our city/state/federal officials, I don't draw the same parallel with God. The Ultimate Authority stands outside any voting or acquiescence of human will. So if I dig deeper, what I find is perhaps a relational connection, one where we, as humans, can cry out "our votes (lives) matter" precisely because of our relation to the Authority (God). I love that a poem can be read and understood so many different ways by so many different people!
Again, thanks so much for sharing. Best,
Daniel
Amen! I love this. I like the insistent cry or plea to "Authority!" You appeal to this nameless, faceless yet very powerful entity that, while is no way divine, has power over something critical to life - water. It moved me emotionally and stirred my soul and I'd like to share it with my non-OOTLE social media accounts if that's ok.
From an academic perspective, I was checking to make sure you contained all the elements of a complaint psalm - of course you did. The direct address to the authority, the complaint about the situation, the petition for help, the statement of trust that the authority has the power to help and the ability to let the community be as one. I didn't see the vow as clearly expressed as the other elements but it didn't dampen the effectiveness of the message at all. Really well done - thank you for sharing! @cmsootle16 #ootle16
Alex, this is so well done. An informed and passionate Lament-Psalm for a very dire situation.
"The Powers and Principalities turn off our taps, letting our arrears fill their own cups. Their cups runneth over,they are sated by our debts." SO many great lines, but I read those phrases over an over again, and saw truth translated into so many other examples of injustice. Thank you for all that you (and so many others) are doing to bring justice to Detroit's people.
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