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On Lamentation

By Tripp Hudgins
Photo: Southern Stock / Getty Images
Photo: Southern Stock / Getty Images
Jul 25, 2012
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This morning I read and sang this canticle.

Come, let us sing to the Lord;
 let us shout for joy to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving
 and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God,
 and a great king above all gods.
In his hand are the depths of the earth,
 and the heights of the hills are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
 and his hands have moulded the dry land.
Come, let us bow down and bend the knee,
 and kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For he is our God,
   and we are the people of his pasture
   and the sheep of his hand.
 O that today you would hearken to his voice!

   Psalm 95:1-7 (Venite)

Then I lamented. I lamented the work of human beings to tear down what God holds in God's hands. I lamented that my friends in the peace movement callously sent a press release decrying the gun lobby within what seemed like moments after the smoke cleared in Aurora. I lamented the inane anti-Darwinian posture of other Christians. We're all looking for something to blame. We cannot simply sit in our sackcloth and our ashes and lament ... lament our own failure, lament the actions of someone raised in church, lament our inability to protect the innocent, lament our powerlessness.

We cannot and will not lament our powerlessness. We need to learn how. 

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Photo: Southern Stock / Getty Images
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