There have been many nights over the past thirteen years when I've turned to the book of Psalms to express what's otherwise been expressible.
I have an observation about dealing with suffering, pain, disappointment: Some people like to "go high" while others "go low". I'm part of that "go low" crowd.
Walter Brueggemann groups the Psalms under the headings psalms of orientation and psalms of disorientation. Psalms of orientation are the psalms of unmitigated praise. YHWH reigns supreme in these psalms and the world is well-ordered. By contrast, the psalms of disorientation are the psalms of protest and lament where YHWH has gone missing and the world seems to be falling apart.
Folks who "go high" generally use the psalms of orientation. Folks who "go low", psalms of disorientation. So, I gravitate toward psalms of lament.
It seems lots of folks go to the psalms of orientation -- psalms of praise which declare God's control and sovereignty over a well-ordered creation -- for comfort and solace in times of trouble. That strikes me as strange. Why, when your world is falling apart, would you sing songs of a well-ordered and well-governed world?
There's a good reason for this: They want to see far down the road, to see that all will be well in the end. That, despite appearances today, God is ultimately in control. And you get this view best in the psalms of orientation. To be sure, you sing these psalms with tears in your eyes. You weep them out. You offer them up as hope. But this long view, the view from heaven, helps you get through the day.
That's what I mean by "going high".
But many others like to "go low". That is, they like to stick close to the suffering on earth, to the painful human experience. The psalms of lament do this. They take the perspective of earth looking up to a blank and silent heaven. These psalms shake their fists at the sky. For many people, these are the psalms that best articulate the experience of their suffering. These words best fit their tears.
That's "going low".
And it's been, like I said, my default approach when praying the psalms for a long time.
I even used to judge those who went high in the face of suffering. I felt that their appeals to God's sovereignty were a form of denial, fantasy, and escapism. A too-easy move toward "God is in control and all is for the good". To be sure, I think this is often the case.
But, over the past few months -- and this thanks to Kendra -- I've grown more understanding of "going high".
Last night was a particularly disappointing night. I slept, but my dreams were punctuated by playing out some personally disappointing and sad news. (I'll spare you the details.)
To be clear, I don't like it when others go high on behalf of those who are suffering. You don't say in trying to comfort the one in pain, "God willed this and it's for the best". You don't use the psalms of orientation as existential band-aids to patch people up. That's obscene. You don't go high for other people. If they want to climb into heaven to take in the view, great, but don't you do it for them. (This, sadly has been the response of so many fellow Christians. They mean well, but it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.)
No, what I'm talking about here is learning to pray those psalms of orientation too -- alongside the psalms of disorientation.
I used to think that was just making me an escapist. But I've watched her hope through tears. And I think that's how I have to pray those psalms of orientation, even when I'm disoriented. Hopes and longings can be expressed as certainties and convictions. These psalms, when paired with tears, are a sort of lament, a deep longing and cry for a place and time when pain shall be no more. A way of expressing the hope, in the words of Julian of Norwich, that "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well".