Newtown

Sometimes the world is just too sad. This Friday, just as I was about to close my computer and head out the door to a Christmas party for the kids and tutors involved in the after-school tutoring program that I manage, I saw the news about the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. I saw the headlines, and a few photos: women with their mouths open, frozen in a scream; police looking bewildered; children in lines in a parking lot... I shut my computer, knowing I would be late if I didn’t, and left for the party.

 

All afternoon, I played games with precious elementary-aged children, frosted cookies with them, made Christmas cards for their tutors, and refused to think about Connecticut or to try to fill in the blanks between the few facts I knew. What I did know was utterly incompatible with the joy, with the pure LIFE  all around me.

But of course, the story found me on the drive home. I listened to the radio and heard from someone who went to Sandy Hook Elementary, from a reporter at the scene with few details, from newscasters struggling to give the weather report without sounding ridiculous.

 

I understand. There are no words. There is nothing to say. There is only a deep sadness, unearthed by this specific event, but always there. It is the sense that the world is not as it should be. It is homesickness for a place that is in some ways so familiar and in some ways so foreign to us. It is a longing for perfect community with our neighbors and our God in a restored city, an utterly new town.

 

Prayer of Lament

 

O God, you are our help and strength,

our refuge in the time of trouble.

In you our ancestors trusted;

They trusted and you delivered them.

When we do not know how to pray as we ought,

your very Spirit intercedes for us

with sighs too deep for words.

We plead for the intercession now, Gracious One.

For desolation and destruction are in our streets,

and terror dances before us.

Our hearts faint; our knees tremble;

our bodies quake; all faces grow pale.

                                                    Our eyes are spent from weeping       

and our stomachs churn.

How long, O Lord, how long

must we endure this devastation?

How long will destruction lay waste at noonday?

Why does violence flourish

while peace is taken prisoner?

Rouse yourself! Do not cast us off in times of trouble.

Come to our help;

redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love.

For you are a gracious God

abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

By the power of the cross,

through which you redeemed the world,

bring to an end hostility

and establish justice in the gate.

For you will gather together your people into that place

where mourning and crying and pain

will be no more,

and tears will be wiped from every eye.

Hasten the day, O God of our salvation.

Accomplish it quickly! Amen.

 

From Let the Whole Church Say Amen! A Guide for Those Who Pray in Public by Laurence Hull Stookey, pp94-95 (Copyright 2001 by Abingdon Press)