Litany for Japan (Teresa Berger)

Dear People of Christ Church,

Today, I'd like to share a moment of prayer with you. Following along the Lenten carbon fast, I've been very aware of how the choices we make in using resources have real costs, particularly in the unfolding nuclear dangers. So pray for us--for wisdom and conservation--as well as those who suffer from the earthquake and tsunami, both in Japan and in other areas around the globe which were affected. The following litany comes from Teresa Berger, a professor at Yale.


A Litany, for Japan

by Teresa Berger

... that all the lives that have been lost may find their eternal rest in You

... that those grieving the loss of loved ones, especially their children, and the loss of entire families and communities, may find glimpses of hope and life

... that those injured and those fighting for their lives may find solace, hope, and healing

... that a nuclear catastrophe may be averted

... that those searching for loved ones may be sustained in their turmoil and struggle

... that those waiting for water, food, and the basic necessities of life may be able to strengthen each other and share meager resources

... that those who are especially vulnerable - the children, the elderly, the women waiting to give birth, the sick - may find others to care for them

... for all aid workers, that they may discover within themselves deep reservoirs of strength, generosity, and compassion

... for the rising up of human beings who know how to heal, to restore, to rebuild, and to birth anew life and hope

... for ourselves, that our lives may be strengthened in their witness to God's holy and ever-healing presence

Amen.

From May 15: Presence and Pain

Again, this week, I find myself in a place of lament.

As I picked my son, Isaiah, up at daycare yesterday NPR broadcast a story of a family finding out that their 2 year old and elderly parents had died in the collapse of their apartment building. (see link below) The story began by introducing us to the couple, and told of the woman leaving for work at a department store leaving her son with his grandparents. The baby cried and wanted to come along, but she left him, and minutes later the earthquake struck. It’s every parent’s nightmare—“I should have brought him with me!”—come vividly and terribly true. The NPR host spoke with them as the excavation equipment began working, and they hoped against hope to find the boy. Finally, a rescue worker brought the news that they had found the bodies of an elderly man cradling a small boy, with an older woman right beside. The couple dissolved in tears, and as I drove, Isaiah staring contently out the window, I did, too—all of the frustration of the day dissolved away. I was with that woman who had lost her child.

I had been late to get Isaiah—I rode my bike to church but discovered as I was leaving that the tire was completely flat, so I set off to walk home—just over 2 miles, to retrieve the car and pick him up. On the walk, I’d been hurried and occupied, but also startlingly aware (as I had also been riding my bike that morning and the day before) at how little I actually perceive as I go about my day. Driving, I am so intent on speed—getting through the next stop light, getting in the correct lane to go fast, fast, fast. Time in the car is wasted time, the reasoning goes, and so I want to minimize the waste. Logical, right?

The thing is that time in the car isn’t wasted time—there is no wasted time. The only wasted time is time that we spend spiritually being somewhere else. The only waste is our absence from our own lives. Slowing down by riding my bike or walking allowed me to perceive what I’ve always “seen,” but never noticed.

We so frequently don’t engage with what’s around us. News on the radio of bombs going off in faraway places, of disasters and terror, don’t touch us. We go about hurrying, on to the next task before having completed the last. Hearing about that couple in China who had lost their baby, I was put in mind of all of the people who have lost children and parents both in China and in Myanmar and places of desperation all over the globe and close to home. I’ve listened to all the reports of thousands dead, but wasn’t able to actually hear it until I was invited into the story of a single family. I was able to be present in a way that had escaped me before, just as my unexpected walk home from work helped me to see what I never do.

It’s a deeper truth than just “stopping to smell the roses” (lilacs in this case). Being a Christian is about being present both to the pleasure as well as the pain that is all around us. Being a Christian is about being open to God, and God is to be found in the depth of the present. As I walked past the lilacs and wisteria on Bacon Street yesterday afternoon, God seemed everywhere. As I cried for that family in China, God, too, came near. The challenge of the Christian life is to be willing to bear witness to all that life offers us. We all have ears to hear—will we have the courage?

Lament for Myanmar

This week, as perhaps you are, I’ve been feeling stunned about what’s going on in Myanmar, also known as Burma. Cyclone Nargis, with winds of up to 120 miles per hour, swept through the country last Saturday. The preliminary estimate of 25,000 dead could actually be closer to 100,000 people. The UN estimates that 1 million people could be left homeless. Last September, the world’s attention turned to the area when the government violently suppressed pro-democracy protests by Buddhist monks. Now, the government is only slowly permitting humanitarian aid to enter the country, but many aid workers are still unable to secure visas even as the disaster mounts.

Now, as with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, as with the Tsunami in the Indian Ocean 2004, we simply cannot understand why things like this happen. We try to explain, of course. Both here and abroad, we can point to the inadequacy of human response, and political and environmental factors that caused the disaster in the first place. Human activity causes climate change, which in turn impacts water temperature, which in turn makes for more severe hurricanes. Political systems fail, self-interest clouds the judgment of those in charge, and leaders make bad choices. But none of our explanations suffice. At the bottom of those questions, we’re still trying to understand why God would create a world in which such things happen. They are “natural” disasters—but why are they natural?

The scale of global inequality, too, is mindboggling. We Americans are anticipating our “free” cash from the government, encouraged to buy things to spur on the consumer economy. In Burma, a representative from the American embassy has said that there are no nails in the capital city. How do you go about recovering from a natural disaster with no nails? When you have to ship in just a simple chainsaw from neighboring countries?

I don’t have any answers today—all any of us can do is pray, listen, learn, give what we can. I think there is something holy in offering witness to tragedy—certainly, try to improve the situation—but also simply open ourselves to the grief of others. Lament is as strong a Biblical tradition as repentance. Many of the psalms are psalms of lament, telling stories of pain and suffering of sackcloth and ashes. The psalmist writes in vivid imagery, “I have become like a vulture in the wilderness, like an owl among the ruins…I have eaten ashes for bread, and mingled my drink with weeping.” The book of Lamentations tells the story of the perceived rejection of Israel, but ends with hopeful lines of faith in God. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’

There is hope, but it’s an active hope—we are called to do what we can, and to trust that life can come from the ashes. We cannot know why these things happen. But we can know that God is never absent from those in pain. So today, I invite you to pray in hope. For Myanmar/Burma, and for us. For wise leaders and diplomatic solutions to crises all around the world. Let us pray for our own hearts, too, that we have the courage to be open to others’ pain and to give what we can to alleviate their suffering.

For more on the Anglican response to the disaster, visit http://www.er-d.org