"We Just Can't"
A service of lament and resistance
“We just can’t.” We finally said it out loud.
Bryan and I were sitting together, planning Sunday worship the way we usually do. We’re drawn to the lectionary. There’s something grounding about knowing that, across the world and across denominations, communities are turning toward the same sacred texts at the same time.
But as we worked on finalizing music and readings yesterday, we both stopped. We looked at each other across the table, each waiting for the other to name what was already hanging in the air. Then it came, with a heavy, exhausted sigh.
“We just can’t this week.”
In recent days, so many people have been reaching out to us for support. They’re feeling overwhelmed, disappointed, grieving, angry, numb. Shell-shocked by the state of our country. Exhausted by the weight of the world. And so we just can’t move on as if everything is normal. Because these are not normal times.
This week, we need a different kind of space. So we scrapped all our plans and started over.
We need to make room for lament. To join the psalmists who pounded their fists against the heavens and cried out, “How long?” We need to stand with the prophets who refused silence in the face of injustice. We need to sit with Jesus, who chose love again and again amid the powerful crushing forces of greed and empire. We need to remember that we are not alone.
So this Sunday, we are creating space not for answers, but for presence.
You are invited to join us at Holland UCC for a time of lament.
No matter what you believe (or if you’re not sure what you believe at all) you are welcome. Come name what’s burning in your chest. Come light a candle for one person… or for the whole world. Come sit in silence. Come rest in music, poetry, and community.
Come as you are.
Come weary.
Come hopeful.
Come hurting.
We will hold this space together.
10:10 am EST @ the Midtown Center in Holland, Michigan. For our family spread far and wide, you can tune in here on Facebook Live.
Thank you for this. It’s what we need right now—lament. Last Sunday, we celebrated Epiphany during worship. Yes, the Light of Christ shines in the darkness—but, oh, the depth of the darkness this week. It’s palpable. It’s unspeakable. I plan to adapt the first part of worship for lament and then move into the service (Baptism of the Lord) and a time to recognize our baptism. Living into our baptism—Lord Jesus—help us remain faithful to you and to your way of love and inclusion and compassion—come what may. Amen.
I admire you and your husband for stepping away from the expected—the normal—to acknowledge what is really calling to you and others…what is really necessary. I am always flabbergasted after a school shooting or other mass shooting, after January 6th, after ridiculous ICE raids, after one of the Mad King’s proclamations, after a SCOTUS ruling that disadvantages or further disadvantages the marginalized, etc., etc., how it is that we go on with things as they are, as if nothing happened. The result of this is that we begin to see these things as either a normal part of life or something that occurs outside our regular schedules and rhythms and we just keep moving on in robotic fashion, as in Fahrenheit 451. This is why strikes are so effective. Things stop. Things are interrupted. The strikers get our attention. I often wonder why people who are horrified by what’s happening don’t just STOP. Stop working, stop buying, stop going places and planning vacations, and instead get together in groups, either in protest or just for community and comfort. One of the many reasons I left church/religion was because horrors continued to happen and we just kept doing the same old/same old as if all was normal when it so clearly is not.