Liturgy of Lament - Stony the Road We Trod
Stony the Road We Trod - A Liturgy of Lament
“What I’m about to say, could mean the world’s disaster, could turn your joy and laughter to tears and pain. It’s that love’s in need of love today. Don’t delay, send yours in right away. Hate’s going around breaking many hearts. Stop it, please, before it goes too far.” Stevie Wonder
Today Ahmaud Arbery should be celebrating his birthday. Instead his family mourns a loss that should not be. Ahmaud was murdered in cold blood by white men hunting a human as if they were not. Serena Angelique Velázquez and Layla Peláez in Puerto Rico. Nina Pop in Sikeston, Missouri: their trans identities punishable by death. Sean Reed in Indianapolis. Douglas Lewis in St. Paul. Deborah Gatewood in Detroit.
How much are we to bear, how many will we lose? How long are we to take this? Words wear out. They should be alive. Racism is deadly. Bigotry kills. We cry with everyone who wails with more weeping than words, because our kindreds should be alive today. Their deaths should not mean “yet another” sacred life taken by violence and rejection.
May we forever speak their names, demand justice, damn white supremacy, and seek healing for every generation who has suffered the loss of sacred life.
A Liturgy of Lament
We weep with everyone who wonders “How long?”, because these, God’s beloved, should be alive.
Grounding Ritual: Read aloud from Psalm 102
Hear my prayer, Lord; let my cry for help come to you. Do not hide your face from me when I am in distress. Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly.
For my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers.
My heart is blighted and withered like grass; I forget to eat my food.
In my distress I groan aloud and am reduced to skin and bones.
I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins.
I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof.
All day long my enemies taunt me; those who rail against me use my name as a curse.
My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass.
Listen + Meditate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5XaKmUsqoc
O freedom! O freedom over me. Before I’d be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my Lord and be free.
Lament for Deborah Gatewood
Lord hear the prayers of your people.
Listen, Lord. Your children are dying. Young ones are languishing in cages. Will you #FreeOurYouth? Will you empower the little ones to lead? Look too upon our elders are ignored when they cry for help.
Stony the road we trod! We have come over a way that with tears has been watered. Hear our prayer O God. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears*
Deborah Gatewood, we speak your name. We plead your peace eternal in the great bosom of our God. Rest in glory. Let us always speak your name, let your people tell your story. Oh Lord, our sister should not be gone. She devoted her days to the loving care of human bodies, your creation’s crowns!
She sought help when she was supposed to, she refused to give up and she pressed her case for proper care. Oh Lord, we cry out HOW LONG? Because our sister should not be gone. Deborah Gatewood, daughter of God, we speak your name. {say her name}
We weep with everyone who wonders “How long?”, because these, God’s beloved, should be alive.
Lament for Trans Women / Confession of Failure in the Church
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, Lord my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death, and my enemy will say, “I have overcome,” and my foes will rejoice when I fall. From Psalm 13
Stony the road we trod, O God! Bitter the bruisings of bigotry.
How can we march on? How can we sing in these lands that mark us as strangers?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered. Hear our prayer O God. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears*
Nina Pop was 28 years old when she was killed May 3rd, 2020. Nina is the 10th transgender person known to be murdered in the United States this year.
Nina Pop, God’s beloved, we speak your name {say her name}
Serena Angelique Velázquez and Layla Peláez were found in a badly burned car in Puerto Rico in April. They were the 3rd and 4th transgender women to be killed in Puerto Rico this year, and the number is up to 8 now.
Serena Valazquez, God’s beloved, we speak your name {say her name}
Layla Pelez, God’s beloved, we speak your name {say her name}
All we have are bitter tears and heavy hearts. Hate has already gone too far. One life lost, is much too far. Our shared wounds reopen. Our deep bruises never disappear. Listen, Lord, your children are being slaughtered. These, your daughters, are worthy of life.
We whose identities are not identical to theirs, we confess our failures. We confess our indifference, our apathy, our hatred of your children, our siblings. We confess the “othering” that has caused their weathering. We confess our part in the mess that has made them seem invisible. We confess our need for you, the One who creates above and beyond all gender. The one who knows and knits the soul, the One to whom NO. BODY. is invisible, the One who calls our bodies beautiful. Forgive us O God. We need your mercy.
Empower O God, set free, our Transgender, Queer and Gender non-conforming siblings. O God, let your joy live in them, keep them safe from harm. Protect your children, O God, bring the wicked to ruin, cause their enemies to flee! We would have your justice, O God. The only vindication that brings true restoration.
We cry aloud now, we long for their plenty, we work for their safety, we advocate for their peace.
We weep with everyone whose weary years bring loud and silent tears.
Because they should be free from threat, because our sisters should be alive.
Lament for Sean Reed
We weep with everyone who sees no justice, feels no peace. Because they should be alive
Would that we were surprised, O God, at the loss of our brother, a son, a friend. Your baby boy, beloved in the fullness of his being, has been taken away by people who claim to cover us in their service of protection.
We have been crying out for years. We hate the helplessness of this season. We will work for the abolition of police and an end to police terror, but we would know your power as present in this fight, O God. Oh how we have cried out and seemed to hear no answer!
Both our declarations stating “Black Lives Matter” and our inquiries asking “How long, O Lord?” seem to fall on deaf ears. Our own people, O God, have not heard our cries. A Black man turned blue at the loss of himself, only to spill his brother’s blood on the ground, it cries out to you. Sean Reed’s blood cries out from the hands of bystanders, bears witness to the wicked words of the police who stood over him. We who mourn him, your child, O God, we speak his name. Sean Reed, you are worthy of justice, you should not be dead. {say his name}
When faith, hope, and love are in short supply, we are led to look to our ancestors for strength, courage, and wisdom. We ask them to teach us how to love and support each other. We ask them to teach us how we must fight and how we might live during trying times. We ask these things knowing that our collective healing and wellbeing will not wait on the changed minds of the wicked.
Protect, O God, Protect, the minds of the mourning, the hearts of those crushed by loss and death. And rise up for us, rise up and fight in the ways we are unable. Rise up and strike down the strongholds that make our enemies proud.
Lord my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, or they will tear me apart like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me. Arise, Lord, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree justice. Let the assembled peoples gather around you, while you sit enthroned over them on high. Let the Lord judge the peoples. Vindicate me, Lord, according to my righteousness, according to my integrity, O Most High. Bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure— you, the righteous God who probes minds and hearts. From Psalm 7
We who have not been given justice, we lament the distant notion of peace. Our brother should be alive. These, your children, O God. They should be alive.
Lament for Ahmaud Arbery
Why, Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises. He boasts about the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord. In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God. His ways are always prosperous; your laws are rejected by him; he sneers at all his enemies. He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.” He swears, “No one will ever do me harm.”
His mouth is full of lies and threats; trouble and evil are under his tongue. He lies in wait near the villages; from ambush he murders the innocent. His eyes watch in secret for his victims; like a lion in cover he lies in wait. He lies in wait to catch the helpless; he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net. His victims are crushed, they collapse; they fall under his strength. He says to himself, “God will never notice; he covers his face and never sees.” From Psalm 7
The words escape us. It is hard to articulate the void lurking in our wounded hearts for the loss of Ahmaud Arbery and countless others hunted by white supremacy. Who prays for the hunted? Who prays for the souls that stare down the heated barrels of hate and ignorance? There is blood of black children crying from the ground and tears from mourning mothers falling from a weighted sky. God are you listening?" Where can we go to be free?
And what is the result of their arrest? Death penalty - more death. Prison sentence - endangering the lives of incarcerated neighbors, guaranteed mental corruption, no rehabilitation. And what if they walk free? We tremble at the thought.
Whatever happens, Lord you must look upon the bereaved, you must see the family and communities who loved Ahmaud - for they are serving a life sentence of loss without him.
No, we have no reason for rejoicing today. History reminds us, prison provides no promise of penitence. And our demand for justice is one of repentance and repair. We demand both structural and social change.
O Lord let your church change too. Let us be your promise of penitence, repentance and repair. Let us be the first to call for justice and the first to transform in order to do it.
Change the way we raise our children. Change the way we talk to our parents. Change the books we read. Change the way we read the ancient texts. Change the location of our wealth. Change the treasures stored up in our hearts. Change the way we see you.
Change our lives.
Prayer of Faith
As surely as there are Black people in the future, there must be protection for us here, now.
Lord, your sanctuary should be our space of safety. Will you bring the change we need in order to make it so? White and hetero-normative supremacies demand blood sacrifice in exchange for social benefit. Your victory over them, King Jesus, gives us cause to march on. Your empathy empowers us, your relation to the oppressed, your ancestral clothes of resistance, resilience and the cause of liberation, these things make us mighty in inheritance with you. This is why we weep, O Lord, because we will follow your example. We stand in the spaces where we believe miracles are yet to unfold, and we weep over the shadows of death. We linger on phone lines while our loved ones breathe their last, knowing their souls will soon rest from torment and terror, and we weep. We read and watch and worry; our souls are starved for those who have no food to eat. Our hearts are battered for those who cannot escape abuse. We are discontent for the sake of those whose addiction struggles are burying them alive. Our hands are empty, our minds are strained, our emotions are drained, we wither away, O God, we weep.
We weep with everyone who wonders “How long?”,
We weep with everyone who sees no justice, feels no peace.
We weep with everyone whose weary years bring loud and silent tears.
We weep for the loved ones who were stolen from us.
We work to protect those who are with us still, by any and all means necessary.
We who believe in freedom will not rest until it comes.
Amen. Ašé.
Filling Ritual: Stay in the fight
Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. From 1st Timothy
Kneeling or prostrate. Meditate on the words of 1st Timothy 6.12 through 4 minutes of silence, for the 400 years of Black resistance and resilience in the United States.
O Lord, the helplessness is draining. We are fatigued, yet we feel we are the only ones who are willing to fight, Will you lead us, O Living One? Will you teach us to move with the energy of eternity? Teach us to pray and to protest, to mobilize and to mourn, teach us to stay in the fight. Lord, hear the prayers of your people, Amen.
Resources for mental and emotional health
Movement of mourning to dancing [Optional]
The choral tradition spiritual “Chains”, inspired by sorrow songs, leads into the Black pride anthem “Optimistic”, both performed by Sounds of Blackness in the 90’s. Here’s the original music video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpvAil65yJc
Healing is a Journey, conversation in the Beloved Community series by M4BL
Black-centered Art Experience: 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair https://www.1-54.com/blog/1-54-online-edition-live-on-artsy/
Sources:
Layla and Serena - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/23/us/Puerto-Rico-Transgender-death.html
Nina Pop - https://www.hrc.org/blog/hrc-mourns-nina-pop-black-transgender-woman-killed-in-missouri
Sean Reed - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/us/sean-reed-indianapolis-shooting.html
Deborah Gatewood - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/04/racism-us-healthcare-coronavirus-african-americans
Douglas Lewis - https://www.startribune.com/experts-self-defense-claim-in-fatal-shooting-of-st-paul-driver-may-be-difficult-to-prove/570242152/
*lyrics from our national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson
Contributors: Brittany Hughes, Venneikia Williams, Rev. Michelle Higgins, Rev. Aaron Rogers, Rev. Alexis Carter Thomas