Honest Sadness: Lament in a Pandemic Age
Ebook
In the present century, from the twin towers to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is much to disturb our securities and beliefs. The Old Testament presents us with similar situations of bewildered suffering, and one persistent theme of response is that of lament.
Honest Sadness examines lament as a means of articulating faithful incomprehension, and as a resource for what have been called communities of honest sadness. It traces the development of lament through the Old Testament and questions why it is apparently absent from both the New Testament and much of the life of the Church today, at just the point where many think it could be most useful.
Those who work with disabled people and with abuse victims, for example, are realizing the importance of lament. Liturgists are wondering how it can be reintroduced into worship, and whether it is legitimate to do so. Biblical scholars are looking afresh at how and why lament died out.
The book brings these various questions and insights together, suggesting that perhaps the early Church got it wrong about lament, and attempting new definitions for communities of honest sadness. It is written not only from the perspective of lived experience in the wider world in such places as Beirut and Bosnia, but also from the intensely painful personal experience of the author’s own bereavement. It will be of interest to all who are reflecting theologically seriously on our times, or helping others to do so.
We could be forgiven for thinking that lament does not have a place in our sophisticated society. It hardly appears in the New Testament, being more associated with the Books of Lamentations and Psalms in the Old Testament. However the author takes another view, one in which it is time for us to acknowledge the significant role that lament can play in allowing us to express our emotions. These can be personal, and the author vividly describes his grief at the slow and painful deterioration of his beloved wife, Sue, due to dementia. Emotions can be communal. In each chapter he describes events, for example, protests in Beirut, a family of refugees in Cyprus and the response of the public to the first lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, which form the platform to explore our understanding of lament as Christians through the Bible, poetry, and song. We are challenged to reflect honestly on what emotions we have felt whilst reading each story, to think what the Bible teaches us about lament and to encourage openness in our own ministries.
Honest Sadness is a vaccine for traumatized souls, Masterly surveying lament in the Scriptures, John Holdsworth regrets the Early Church (too dazzled by fortitude and resurrection) downplayed it. He boldly re-imagines lament in South Wales, Cyprus, Beirut and Bagdad, and every place where love is outraged. As he passionately seeks hope even amidst communities racked by COVID or abuse, he centres each chapter on searing personal reflection as the love of his life disintegrates before his eyes. Throughout, he dares to let love be dangerous in places where any words will be wrong. All those baffled-by-tragedy-broken-hearted-folk will find rich solace here, as they realise the silence of God is not a disaster. All those stiff-upper-lipped-alpha-Christians will so lament they never even shed a tear.
- Title: Honest Sadness: Lament in a Pandemic Age
- Author: John Holdsworth
- Publisher: Sacristy Press
- Print Publication Date: 2021
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781789591637, 9781789591613, 1789591619, 9781789591620, 1789591627, 1789591635
- Resource ID: LLS:9781789591637
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-07-20T09:51:32Z
John Holdsworth is Honorary Director of Ministry in the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf and Canon Theologian of the Anglican Cathedral in Nicosia.