Exile. Lament. Love. Repeat. A sequence I have settled on to help me deal with the chaos and cruelty that is swirling around us and raising havoc within us. Certainly around and within me.
Exile. Exile involves being barred or sent away from one’s country. That is happening on many different levels. The most obvious and tragic example of exile is the rounding up of people who are not allowed to be in America, at least according to ICE and the puppet masters who are directing them. This is all done on the pretext that those being deported are dangerous criminals or terrorists, which is a diabolical way of stoking fear and legitimizing racism to the degree that many people are feeling exiled into their own places of residence, fearing that any venture outside will expose them to deportation.
And there are the millions who are being exiled from resources that enable them to carry on in life.SNAP benefits are set to expire, which will increase the level of food insecurity. People will go hungry. And for those of us who are not being targeted and exiled for reasons of nationality or food security, there is the sense of being exiled from our own country, where the rule of law is being disregarded, the Department of Justice is being remolded into an office of retribution, and the democracy that we have cherished is being undermined at every turn.
As difficult as all of this is, we can take some solace from our ancestors who have lived in and through exile. Over 3000 years ago the Psalmist wrote, “how can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:4) Over the intervening centuries there have been countless stories of people who were “foreigned”, yet found a way to sing of hope, pray for healing, and claim their agency.
Which leads me to lament. Lament acknowledges the loss, expresses the pain of that loss, and –perhaps this is most important – retains a level of agency. Lament is fundamentally different from complaint. Whining and complaining, which so much of our culture is devoted to, often end up being heartfelt expressions of grief and loss that are sent down a rabbit hole, where they get stuck and end up constricting the soul even more. Lament involves offering the same heartfelt expressions of grief and loss and sends them up and into the world. Lament has a kind of power; lament enables one to retain agency — because within the lament there is the presence and promise of hope. Lament recognizes that the world can be cruel and capricious but nonetheless is an investment that there is a better way. Lament helps us not just to name the powers behind the cruelty, but gives a location for them, which enables us to be more effective in fashioning a response that is guided by hope.
Love is a manifestation of hope. It is the easiest and hardest to engage in this sequence of exile, lament, and love. Easiest because I believe we have been created in love. In faith I believe that we are each imago Dei, made in the image of God, with an inherent capacity to give and receive love. Yet in some ways love is the hardest because hate has come to dominate nearly every platform, hate is embedded in nearly every executive order, and in some spaces hate is identified as a virtue. Most perniciously, hate can evoke hate, which then sets us off in a life-denying spiral of political and spiritual warfare.
As I live into this sequence of exile, lament and love, I am drawn even more deeply into the teachings of Jesus, which he profligately offered during his three-year earthly ministry. He was a consistent agent of love in spite of all the hate that came his way. “But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you”. (Luke 6:27) Jesus is inviting people into a power, a power that is real and a power that ultimately would be the most effective against the oppressive power of the Roman Empire. Jesus’ admonition to love our enemies is a way to honor them as children of God who have been exiled from their own goodness. I am more appreciative of that power, and more aware of my need for it.
The challenge of these days – and the ongoing cycle of exile, lament and love I am seeking to follow, has revealed to me how much I love my country. Like many of us, I have taken for granted the many privileges bestowed on me for being a white American educated male. Now that many of those privileges are being threatened and dismantled — for so many of us in varying degrees, I am discovering how important other people are – especially those who are being threatened the most, and how precious this American experiment is.
It is worth fighting and loving for.
