Laments are OK - or dare I say - "When cursing at God is OK"

Beside my bed this week are four half-finished books - The Africa Cookbook, Read Aloud Handbook, and The Bible Jesus Read (Philip Yancey), and the one-year Bible. I'm in a rut of starting books and not finishing them lately. These all happen to be decent, depending on my mood, so I don't know what to do!

So, about "laments". I feel like in the past year or so, I've had more questions and frustrations and confusions over Christian faith than peace, worship, and joy. A lot of Christians don't talk about that question stuff a whole lot though. Leading me to wonder - is something wrong with me, or Christianity?

Turns out, maybe neither. I finally found some justification for my discomforts in Yancey's book, as he discusses how 70% of the Psalms, the Bible's prayer book, are "laments" - a.k.a. the cursing psalms! OK, so I'm not the only frustrated person around! The old testament of the Bible, more than the new stuff we read more of today, is actually full of lots of confusion, disappointment, paradoxes.

So what is a "lament"? "We whine about what we have little control over, we lament what we believe ought to be changed. ...The psalmists clung to a belief in God's ultimate goodness, no matter how things appeared at the present, and cried out for justice."

To find God or even his scriptures less than comfortable or clear doesn't mean that I have to discount God or his goodness. But it also doesn't mean I have to sit quietly in confusion.

"To whom do you vocalize the most intense, irrational (inarticulate) anger? Would you do so with someone who could fire you or cast you out of a cherished position or relationship? Not likely, you don't trust them - ...that they would endure the depths of your disappointment, confusion... The person who hears your lament and far more bears your lament against them, paradoxically, is someone you deeply, wildly trust. The language of lament is oddly the shadow side of faith."

I hope that you have laments to offer to God like I do. And for me, I will continue to offer my "angry" prayers up, with confidence that doing so is often the best expression of trust and faith that I can offer to a God who is beyond figuring out.

When a stereotype is not enough....

"I do not like that man. I must get to know him better." Abraham Lincoln

I'm a Christian. Regrettably, I've sometimes allowed that to color my viewpoints of other religions, other people, other worldviews. I found Lincoln's insight on a box of tea a couple of months back. I've been thinking about getting past my stereotypes and first (flawed?) impressions ever since.

I attended a professional development seminar at work yesterday, discussing "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz with about twenty other random colleagues. I expected it to be a book about achieving better communication skills with my students. It was that, but it also turned out to contain a significant amount of "new age" and "relativist" type ideas that I don't really agree with. With a strongly Christian background, I've actually never sat down with a book on either of those topics, considering them more or less devilish. I decided that rather than cancel out of the reading and discussion, I'd try and get to know the ideas a bit better.

I don't like most of the worldviews that Ruiz put forth in the book. But because I read the book, and then sat down to discuss it with others, I discovered a few things -

1) For all of the differences I saw, there were a striking number of similarities between Ruiz's beliefs and my own. I am sure that we could talk for hours.
2) On the other hand, allowing myself to be confronted with such a different belief set helped me sort through what I believe surprisingly clearly.
2) Our discussion at work wasn't at all "weird" or "anti-God" - in fact, others tied in what they had read to verses from the Bible, sermons on Sunday.
3) Talking about the text gave me a chance to get to know many other people from work, who were drawn to open up about their life views, values, experiences. I am certain that a fairly different group would have shown up at a "Bible study".

The thought that I took away from the book and the day? It was the third agreement: Don't make assumptions. Have the courage to ask questions.

Don't like someone, don't like what they believe, don't like what they said? I'm going to continue to work at following Lincoln's example and do the really difficult thing - get to know them better.