Lament for the COVID Kids

This lament was composed by Haven Pastor Leah Martens as part of an exploration of lament that the Haven community has engaged in throughout the month of July 2020. Visit our YouTube channel to view three services held this month that consider the importance of lament in seasons of sustained crisis, and begin to practice it together.

Silence settles on the desolate landscape that was once a playground.
Fences and gates keep children and their grownups away.
Swings sit still, only rustled by the breath of breeze.
And structures meant to be climbed simply stand somberly:
Empty monuments to the mundane magic of play.

But what of the miniature hands and feet that used to scamper and climb here?
What of the myriad voices that had once rung out in cheerful cacophony?
“A child’s work is play” the important grownups have told every concerned parent.
But what kind of work is happening in a world where children cannot play?

What is the cost of a childhood confined?
Where lies the loss of laughter and love?
How can a tablet of metal and glass
Replace the hand of a best friend, clasped tight?

“This is the way to keep them safe”, we rightly say.
But what is safe about suffocation?
What is safe about social deprivation?
What is safe in homes that are not sanctuaries,
but dens of derision, violence, mediation?

“Kids are resilient” the important grownups say,
But none who speak these words have nurtured kids through this.
None have been the only arms that can hug a haunted child.
None have found themselves cast in a one-person show overnight,
Without rehearsal, now playing the part of parent, teacher, best friend, and therapist, too.

None have born witness to the collective trauma of a generation
Driven immediately into the digital arms they were only months ago being warned against.
None have seen a young population transition their work-play
Into texts and posts and online games and come out resiliently on the other side;
Still able to run and climb and read and carry on a coherent conversation.

None have seen the structures that once shaped a family’s life fall apart
And been left puzzling with the pieces that no longer fit together.
Kids may be resilient but what about those they rely on?
Are we resilient enough for this?

And what of the learning lost:
Classroom learning, choir room learning, cafeteria learning?
How will the chasms be closed?
Or will this simply remain a continual casualty;
The curse of the Covid Kids?

Oh my dear children, whom I nurtured in my very body,
How I wish I could draw you back into myself,
Keeping you close and held in the shelter of my being
As you await your emergence.
How I wish I could expand to be enough for you to inhabit
In a way that would comfort and care for you as you develop and grow.

But stretch as I might, you are beyond me.
My womb is not wide enough,
My frame is not strong enough,
My breasts are not full enough
To nourish you with all that you now need.

So I must simply sit here with you
In all the questions that can’t be answered
And all the fears that might be realized.
I will sit with you and speak
Of online games and butterflies.
And I will hold you here, both as you cry and as you sing.
I will accompany you as my Divine Parent accompanies me.

Praying that Spirit breathes on you in the place that still lives free:
That wild imagination that is yet untamed and sweet.
Perhaps this is the hope of a child’s resiliency:
The capacity to dream of a world that might yet someday be.

I Believe God Was In That Hearing Room Yesterday, But Not To Provide Cover for Partisan Posturing

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/167022234@N04/30013132557/in/photolist-MJa9EH-2beRsUU-28J3fMj-2borg67-2bpeB8j-28sMCXw-28qDHTw-2aqCZmf-2buWRHD-MJ7S8t-2bfYeo5-2brJ4ce-MHQHUB-28y7Lt5-2absZCS-2beceGN-28qi36W-P9PjSE-MJRbzz-Mw3Xua-MuVoSr-28qz5f3-2an9CoY-2aj4YPL-2beVcga-28KCLAU-P3pp5w-MJqj2P-2bcXozb-2bd1VJQ-28quy7W-2b9gBau-28K8HxY-MJuqPi-MJDK6a-28KJVQo-MujEJM-2bijgCo-2a5YWSN-28KCord-2ah7dqS-29Zs6KR-MHBMav-2a7KHAx-PmvQMU-2bkQ6qY-2a785gz-2buREFi-2aeKWhw-2bvkCmx

Yesterday was a deeply distressing day for me, in a way that I did not expect it to be. I, like many in this nation, was certainly curious to see what Dr. Christine Blasey Ford would say in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Still, I was unprepared for how viscerally I’d respond to her words. As a survivor of multiple incidents of sexual assault myself, all of which took place before I was twenty, I too know how powerful the impact of these events can be on a person, particularly a young person who is still developing a sense of self. As Dr. Blasey Ford shared her own story, I, like many other survivors across the country was reminded of how vividly those memories stay with us even decades into the future. I also resonated with her terror in sharing these most intimate and traumatizing experiences. I’m not a psychology professor; I’m a preacher by vocation. I speak publicly about my personal experiences all the time. Yet even I find the idea of sharing the details of those most intimate traumatic experiences in a public forum immensely difficult. And I wasn’t the only one who felt the gravity of the moment. As Dr. Blasey Ford spoke her lived experiences, despite being, in her words, “terrified” to do so, there was a hush in the room that reverberated through the television, the radio, and over the internet to watchers and listeners across the country. Her insistence in speaking clearly in the face of fear, despite her voice shaking, and naming the impact of the events she relayed on the rest of her life, was riveting.

It was a very different mood than we experienced later in the day as Judge Kavanaugh testified from the same seat. Much has been and will be written elsewhere about the difference in tone between the two. What stuck with me, particularly as a faith leader, was the final note of the day. In the final five minutes of questioning of Judge Kavanaugh, Senator John Kennedy (the Republican from Louisiana), asked Kavanaugh an odd question. “Do you believe in God?” The judge responded that he did. Then the Senator asked him to look him in the eye and swear to God that he was innocent of all the claims against him. Kavanaugh did so, confidently claiming innocence to every charge and ending with the declaration, “I swear to God.”

So what was the point of invoking God in Kavanaugh’s refutation of Blasey Ford’s story (as well as the other women who have come forward with stories of their own)? The implication seems to be that Kavanaugh is more trustworthy because he is confident enough to swear before a God whom he professes belief in. Clearly it is a signal to the conservative base that Kennedy is trying to appeal to that Kavanaugh is on their side because he’s a “God-fearing” man.

But this signaling also exposes an understanding of (presumably) Christian faith that, as a Christian pastor, I find deeply flawed. It’s the idea that God is there to both back up and stand guard over the men He promotes and allows to lead. God, in this view is the ultimate patriarch at the top of the chain of male-hierarchy. He’s a step or two removed from the mega-church pastors, the president, the senators, and this hopefully-soon-Supreme-Court-Justice. As long as the male leader is on Team God, and willing to state so publicly, we don’t have to be too scrupulous in our own critique of him. This is someone God is choosing and promoting; to question him is to question the Divine. If Kavanaugh is willing to swear before this God that he is innocent, then it would be sacrilegious of us to doubt his credulity.

I honestly believe it’s not my job to testify to the sincerity of another’s faith. I don’t know what kind of relationship John Kennedy, Brett Kavanaugh, or Christine Blasey Ford, for that matter, has with Jesus. I DO know, however, that Jesus himself seemed pretty incensed when he saw religious people of his day using oaths invoking God in order to bolster their own arguments and make themselves sound more credible. “Again, you have heard that it was said to an older generation, ‘Do not break an oath, but fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not take oaths at all… Let your word be ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no.’ More than this is from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:33-34, 37) Jesus seemed to get that calling on God before others to testify to your truthfulness seems more about using the Divine to give you cover, than about being firmly committed internally to sincerity and truthfulness. He consistently called his followers to be wary of outward displays of faith, and to be much more deeply concerned with the way we nurture our relationships with others, with ourselves, and with God when no-one else is watching; behind closed doors.

For myself, I believe I did see the evidence of the presence of the Divine in that D.C. hearing room yesterday, but it wasn’t there to rubber stamp the testimony of the nominee. The presence of God was evident, as it often is, in the voice of the marginilized, risking the rejection of the mob to share her understanding of Ultimate Truth. The reason the nation was riveted when Christine Blasey Ford spoke, the reason the partisanship was silenced for a couple of hours, the reason people on both sides of the aisle couldn’t help but be quiet and gentle in front of her, was because what Dr. Blasey Ford was doing was a sacred act.

As a pastor I’ve experienced first hand the holiness of sharing in another’s deepest pain. Whatever you believe of God, when another human being opens themselves intimately to you it’s an utterly unique gift, to which our humanity is called to attend. The religious term “holy” denotes something that is “set apart”, other than, completely different than the mundane. To believe that God is holy doesn’t mean that God is with our bluster and bravado; those are too common. It is to believe that God is in the places we are most vulnerable, most fragile, most compassionate. That’s why today, as more and more survivors tell their stories and more and more loving partners and friends genuinely listen to them, a holy work will be taking place. God will be present in the voicing of indelible memories and the receiving of the same.

My own experience of healing from sexual assault began with a personal experience of faith, in which I came to believe not only that God cared deeply for me, but that God cared deeply about the wrong that was done to me, and was committed to my restoration. In the same way, I am praying for all of us survivors today, that rather than being asked to testify to whether we believe in God, we will hear the voice of the Divine emphatically remind us that S/he believes us.