Tuesday Evening Chapel - My Devotional

Just this past week, one of the members of my Proverbs 31 e-mail group suggested an experiment. She suggested that we try to come up with as many words that describe God as we can that start with the first letter of that day of the week. On Monday, we came up with magnificent, mindblowing, and the ultimate multitasker. On Tuesday, God was truth, triumphant and totally trustworthy. This continued through Sunday, when God was supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Isn't it amazing how many words we can use to describe our God? We could go on and on, and no one word would be sufficient to describe him fully.

The Bible is filled with a multitude of words used to refer to God. In the Hebrew, we hear names such as Elohim, proclaiming the Lord as the one true God, and El Shaddai which describes God as The Almighty. In English, we have many names for God as well.

We call Him God - the divine being of immeasurable power who created the world and continues to mold it as He wills. He has powers we can not comprehend, and knows more than we can ever dream.

We call Him our Lord. The 'our' is important here, since with these words, we are naming God our superior, just as the middle age serfs answered to the call of the lords who governed their lands. When we cry out to our Lord, we are giving Him the authority to govern our lives.

We call Him Father. Just as a father wishes to have a meaningful relationship with his children, so does our Holy Father wish to hold a meaningful relationship with us. He supports us, teaches us, encourages us as we grow and learn. And He loves us, more than we can imagine.

To be honest, I've only just picked at the tip of the ice berg. What other names do we give God? What roles does He play in our lives? In Grace for the Moment, Max Lucado writes:

God is
The shepherd who guides
The Lord who provides
The voice who brings peace in the storm
The physician who heals the sick, and
The banner that guides the soldier.

In her song "I am," Nicole Nordeman sings:

When life had begun, I was woven and spun,
You let the angels dance around the throne,
And who can say when,
But they’ll dance again, when I am free and finally headed home

I will be weak, unable to speak,
still I will call You by name
“Creator, Maker, Life-sustainer,
Comforter, Healer, My Redeemer,
Lord and King, Beginning and
the End.

Who is God for you today? Who was He for you yesterday? Who will He be for you tomorrow?

Amen.

Word Associations: The Names of God

I don't spend enough time in meditation and Bible study - that is absolutely for certain. I finally got around to picking up Max Lucado's Grace for the Moment book and I'd like to see if I can come up with some "food for thought" for as many days as possible. I'll do this by reading the entry each morning and then going back to contemplate it throughout the day. I can't promise that these thoughts will be coherent or follow any logical sequence. But that's okay.

Today's devotional is about the various names that God has, the roles that He plays. Here is a little excerpt from Lucado's book:

"The shepherd who guides
The Lord who provides
The voice who provides peace in the storm,
The physician who heals the sick, and
The banner that guides the soldier"
- Grace for the Moment, Vol. 1, Max Lucado

I wanted to play a little word association with this piece. Nothing forced, just letting it mule in my head and seeing what came up. Here are a couple of the things that I ended up with.

"The shepherd who guides."

We could do some fun random thought tangents with these kinds of things. Here is how mine went:

"Shepherd" --> Psalm 23 (The Lord is my shepherd) --> Psalms!! --> Psalm 30 (my favorite psalm) --> "Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning" (v. 5b)

Huh. Not really sure how to directly connect the guiding shepherd with Psalm 30:5, but it's a fun little tangent anyway. And I do love that verse.

"The physician who heals the sick."

To be honest, if we are trying to pull out Bible verses here, I am more likely to lean towards one of the ones that says "He comforts the grieving" or something like that. And I did some reflective thinking about why. It seems as though I'm more of an advocate for inner healing than external healing. I'd rather someone be at peace with their life than healthy. Now, I know that the two are often not mutually exclusive (how can you be at peace when you are in pain all the time?) but the counselor in me is still going to advocate for internal healing - and I can tell you from personal experience how often God gives that internal healing. The answer: ALL THE TIME.

"The banner that guides the soldier."

Hmm... this is something that I might have to do some more thinking about. There are some connections to be made.

I didn't used to relate to this line. I didn't now anyone overseas or in the army or anyone who knew anyone who was. But that has changed. My sister's long-time boy friend is currently in Iraq, and we're hoping to see him come home in February. And I have watched my sister go through all of the trials that any army "wife" goes through. It's definitely made the situation more real to me.

Once I made that connection to this line, I tried to think about a Bible verse. And you know what I came up with? You'll laugh. The first verse that came to mind was the one about the armor of the Lord. You know, with the sword or righteousness and stuff? Apparently, in my subconscious mind, the armor of God would not be complete without the banner of the Lord for us to rally at in the middle of the fight.

An Except from Captive Hearts

I haven't visited Captive Hearts on this blog recently. For those of you who are new to this little Blog or have forgotten (it really has been that long), Captive Hearts is the story that I am co-writing with a friend of mine, just because. You can find a basic background to Captive Hearts in my opening post, here. It's a fantasy romance/adventure. Our fantasy world is watched over by four gods: Solarus, Lunos, Vulcos and Aquios. I love working with these gods and their mortal children because each one shows me a different face of our own Holy Father. And it's interesting how often we get to touch on issues that are as real in our world as they are in this fantasy one. Here's something that happened this week in the Heartlands:

((Elliod and Kyra have just discovered that their unborn daughter, Rena, has shamanistic sensitivities.))

Elliod swallows hard, "There have only been 3 shamans among the tribes for a long time... if one is born, then one has to die."

Kyra frowns. Of course she knows this, but... "You, Hanna... and who else?"

Elliod swallows, "Rebecca... she's a cousin in the nearby Holston tribes." He pales, "Hanna... Greatmother. She's the oldest of us... unless..." He bites his lip. "Vulcos is replacing the lost shaman."

"Lost? You mean, from... from the histories?"

Elliod nods, "Do you remember the story of the first male shaman? His greatmother was killed when Dracos broke free of his bonds. Vulcos never replaced her."

Kyra nods, "But Vulcos is sleeping. She can't have enough energy to create a new shaman, can she?"

Elliod takes a deep breath, "I don't know. When she was awake, I would ask her all sorts..." He pauses, "I wonder if I would be permitted to speak to Lunos."

Kyra blinks, then can't help a bark of laughter. "Speak to Lunos? Like, what, just request an audience? She's a goddess! And not even your goddess! You can't do that... can you?"

Elliod smiles, "But see, I have an in. I'm assisting one of her beloved sons... and she allowed me to see you pregnant and fighting. Vulcos doesn't give future visions."

"Still," Kyra shakes her head, "She comes to you when she wills it. You can't just order a goddess to appear before her so that you can interrogate her."

"I'm not going to..." He sighs and reaches up to touch his forehead. "She has to understand how important this is to me. If Rena is born what will happen to my greatmother and cousin!?"

Kyra lets out her breath in a huff. "Gods, Elliod! You are as egotistical as you are dense! The world doesn't revolve around you! And you aren't a god - you don't have to know what the future holds! You have to trust that the gods will care for us. If our child is a shaman, then there's a reason for that. Stop questioning Vulcos' intentions!"

Elliod opens his mouth and gasps, "I'm not!" He protests. "I'm..." He shuts his mouth and stands, walking over to the window and looking out into the darkness with his arms crossed.

Kyra scowls, "You are," she insists. "You just can't bear not to be in total control."

Elliod readjusts his arms and glances back at Kyra without a word. He humphs and shakes his head as he looks back out the window.

Kyra narrows her eyes and says, "Prove it."

Elliod knees the bed and kneels before his wife, "I worry. I think that's part of my job too, to worry."

Kyra snorts, "That's yet another stupid thing that you've said today. Elliod, the gods don't want us to worry. They want us to trust in them."

Elliod leans forward and presses his lips to Kyra's forehead, "I can't help it sometimes." He draws his wife close. "If I love someone, I want them to be safe."

Kyra nods, "I know." She kisses Elliod on the forehead. "But we're Vulcos' children first and formost. She will take care of her own, even asleep."

Elliod sighs and chuckles. "Since when is it the Protector's job to teach about faith, Kryanthia?"

Kyra scowls, "Since you never learned it right." Then her expression does soften. "You've been spoiled, Elliod. The holy child, the gifted one, the singer, the storyteller, the dreamer. You've always had Vulcos' ear. You don't have any idea what it's like for the rest of us who simply have to trust."


This concept is fascinating to me, and something that I think has a lot of meat to it. The idea that the poor will be rich and the last will be first all spirals around to this same idea. The idea that in order to have faith, in order to trust, you must first be uncertain. To say it with different words, you can't let God take control if you are still clinging to the reins. Wow.

Questions for Heaven

"I guess in Heaven I'll learn
I'll be waiting my turn
To ask about quasars and feathers
I hope the line isn't long
I hope Your patience is strong
It's a good thing forever's forever"
-Questions for Heaven, Chris Rice

I haven't posted in a while, mostly because I've been on Summer vacation. My classes start on Monday, and I'm sure I'll have a lot of material to share then. But for now, I wanted to share a little experience of mine.

In my kittypix community, there was a famous kitty named Dusky. Famous because we all knew him by name. Dusky was a newborn kitten, abandoned by his feral momma and adopted by a pair of good samaritan humans. Kimberly and Amanda worked day and night to keep Dusky fed and when he got sick and had to go into the vet, they continued to go in every couple of hours to feed him while keeping him on oxygen. It cost lots of money as well as time and effort. But he recovered. He finally got to come home to Kimberly and he was almost off of oxygen and was looking so much better. Meanwhile, we rooted and cheered for the little guy on kittypix, basking in the multitude of pictures that Kimberly posted. He was our little hero.

And then, suddenly, he was gone. He was at the vet's and in 30 minutes, he went from fine to... gone.

Kimberly was crushed, and so were we all. I was a wreck for several days, and I have amazing friends that were here to help me through it. Now, weeks later, I have finally gotten the courage to talk about what I learned from that experience, in an e-mail to one of those close friends:


I've been doing a lot of thinking about Dusky. He's the kitten who died a few weeks back when I got really upset. The thing is, part of the reason that I was upset was that he was doing so well, and everyone was so excited and then he was just gone. It was like God had given him a challenge and the girls worked so hard and he got better and God gave everyone hope that he'd be fine, and then God just took him away. Kimberly (Dusky's foster mom) was crushed. And the other reason that I was upset is that when my sister found out, she pointed out that the mother had abandoned Dusky and a mother knows. And that pissed me off because, even though I know she's right (in nature, mothers can tell when one baby isn't likely to survive), it just... I mean, it was like, does that mean that we should just let someone die, "Oh, he's predestined to die, so we shouldn't ever bother trying to heal him." I'm sorry, but that's bull shit! God wouldn't punish someone for trying to give someone else a chance to live. So, yeah...

Anyway, this morning, something occurred to me on the way to work. I know when you face these hard questions, the response is almost always either, "You just have to accept that God has His reasons," or "We can never know the answer." But when a question is really important to you, those are not easy answers to swallow... And the truth is, I don't think they should be. Because as God's children, we SHOULD be truth seekers. And part of seeking the truth is asking questions.

Which is what led me to my realization this morning. This realization is that when I get to heaven, I am going to ask God why he took Dusky. Does that seem kind of petty and silly? Perhaps. But... The difference is subtle. It's like... I realized that I could ask questions and still trust God to know the answers, while at the same time accepting that I cannot comprehend the answers RIGHT NOW. But someday... Someday I'll see the whole picture.

I think this is a concept that I'll use when I start my practice as a Christian Counselor. There's a subtle but powerful difference between just saying, "I can never know the answer to my questions," and writing a journal of "all the questions I will ask God when I get to heaven." If the questions are important enough to us, we should not be afraid to ask them, even if we know the answer will be long coming.

So, yeah, sorry for that tangent. The reason for all of this is that when I got to work, after coming to this realization, I found that Kimberly had made an update on kitypix. Apparently, she and Amanda and several others have gone out to track down Dusky's littermates. They've found Dusky's littermates, but can't get to them yet. But they also found another little of kittens of a feral momma and brought them home so that they can have happy lives of petting and loving and sleeping on laps.

Is that why God took Dusky? So that half a dozen other kittens would get a chance to live the same life? I don't know. It's possible. Wouldn't Kimberly and Amanda have gone back for the other kittens anyway? I'd like to think so. But would Kimberly have been as determined (she spent 3 days of searching) if she hadn't just lost Dusky? I don't know. But... It's something to think about. At any rate, yeah, Dusky is on my list of things that I want to ask God about when I get to heaven.

Contemporary Music and the Role of the Psalms in the Journey of Faith

I completed my term paper for my Psalms class. It's not polished, but I had a lot of fun with the content, and learned a lot, so it's something I feel like sharing. And it's something I am excited about pursuing down different avenues in the future (more on that later). So, if you can ignore the fact that all of my formating disappeared between MSWord and Blogger, you are welcome to read it.

Introduction: The Role of the Christian Music and the Journey of Faith

The Book of Psalms has often been referred to as the prayer book or hymnal of Second Temple Jerusalem, and for good reasons. Within this one piece of work are collections of songs, dances, stories and prayers that ran the full gamut of life among the ancient Jews.[1] These songs were used for liturgy, for praise and for communicating with Yahweh, and they covered just about every role that a young Jew might need in their journey through life and through faith.[2]

In today's Christian church, the psalms have been replaced with a wide variety of Christian music, from hymns, to Contemporary Christian music, to African American gospel music. Though the variety is wide, the music of the Christian faith still bears the responsibility of filling the roles that the psalms filled for the ancient Jews. These are roles that are necessary for each person's spiritual and psychological growth as a child of God.[3][4] However, the Christian church's doctrine has changed over the years, and it has altered the view of such ideas as what makes up faith.[5] The concept of faith is a cornerstone to all of the Old Testament psalms, and with the change in Christian beliefs, the church has had to disregard or at least minimize the impact of a good portion of the psalms, most especially the laments or complaint psalms.[6]

In traditional Church worship, there are three different types of music: psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.[7] The psalms as they are defined in Christian music are not the same as the psalms of Second Temple Jerusalem. The psalms of the Old Testament included all types of music, including hymns. In modern worship, the psalms are instead described as prayers and worship songs. Paul Jones explains that psalms "teach us how to worship, and they provide fitting, biblical language with which to thank, praise, implore and glorify God. They also demonstrate confession and lament."[8] Note that though Jones does not leave out the mention of laments entirely, he does minimize their role in his explanation by using mild language such as "implore" and by pairing the lament with the confession, with confession being first, in order and most likely in importance.

In his book, Praying Twice: The Music and Words of Congregational Song, Brian Wren goes so far as to list out all of the characteristics that a song must have to be considered a congregational psalm. It must be: devout, just, frugal, beautiful, communal, purposeful, and musical.[9] Although Wren's criteria are meant to apply specifically to congregational music, it must be remembered that for the ancient Jews, there were no private songs. All psalms were public or congregational, and were to be sung aloud so that everyone who heard the psalmist might either celebrate with him if he was happy or mourn with him if he was sad.[10] The picture Wren paints is of a perfect hymn to be sung in a perfect world where there is no injustice or pain or sorrow. While these perfect hymns are important, they do not by themselves fill out the complete set of roles the psalms in the Old Testament filled.

Secular Music: When World and Faith Collide

Today's Christian music has failed to fill several important roles to guide people through this wild and unpredictable world, so the role has been filled by secular music instead. Secular songs are not handicapped by Christian doctrine, and they are often willing to ask the questions that every person struggles with, without feeling the pressure to always have the answer. In this paper, three types of secular music styles will be used in order to explore the power that secular music can have on a person's faith. These styles are country music, children's songs, and show tunes, specifically soundtrack music from stage productions. There are very distinct reasons why each of these three styles should be examined.

Country Music is a grass roots style of music that has its origins deep in the culture of those who sing it - then and now. It began as a gathering of banjos and fiddles on porches during the 1920's, transformed into what is known as the "Honky Tonk" style of country music with such performers as Hank Williams at the forefront in 1950s. At this time, the "old west" had become the "wild west," and country music represented the unquenchable spirit and grit that was required of those who called that region their home. In the years since, the "wild west" and once again transformed, this time into the "southwest", a mellower, more crowded but not always more civilized version of its younger self. Country music has followed suit, and over the years the genre has gone through at least 3 more stages, including the "urban country" style of the 1980s.[11]

Through all of these transformations, it is easy to see that country music is bound to and given life by the culture of those who sing it. From the very beginning, the residents of the west have had to be strong and determined. Faith was vital, as was the relationships that kept people united against the hostile environment. Even today, in modern country music, you can see those values alive in the songs sung, whether they are written in Nashville, Hollywood, or rural horse ranch in central Texas. Perhaps that is why the genre of country music is much more outwardly accepting of expressions of faith in its music. While country music might use blunt and even harsh language at times or otherwise offend a listener's sensitivities, it is also one of the few styles of music where one can hear songs that could just as easily be played on a Christian radio station. Honest statements of faith can be found everywhere in the realm of modern country music; very few country music artists will release an album that does not have at least one song that puts voice to their personal faith.

In 2009, the Christian music group Point of Grace made the announcement that they would be shifting from the Contemporary Christian music arena to the Country music one. Their songs have not changed much, if at all, and still present a vivid picture of living the life of faith. When asked how these songs were being accepted by the Country music market, they replied, "Just as the Christian market has embraced songs from Martina McBride and Carrie Underwood, I think that the country market is accepting our music. So much of country music through the years has been rooted in faith, so I think that this could be a very natural fit for us."[12] Country music really is one of the few musical genres where it's okay to be secular and still sing about God.

Children songs can come from many sources, but the ones referred to in this text are most often from moves or stories that are directed towards children. Although classically, those movies are produced by Walt Disney Inc., there is plenty of music that is released by other producers as well. These songs are important because they represent our society's replacement for the wisdom psalms of ancient Israel. The purpose of the wisdom psalms was to teach the next generation the lessons they would need to know to become good, successful, upstanding citizens, and the same can be said for the songs that today's culture teaches its children. In the movie Beauty and the Beast, for example, the song "Be Our Guest," teaches children about hospitality, while the song "Something There," makes a statement to children about second chances.[13] From older Disney films come songs like "Who's Afraid of the Bid Bad Wolf?", which teaches about hard work,[14] and Mary Poppins' famous lesson about "A Spoonful of Sugar."[15] Disney does not hold the monopoly on children's wisdom music. In 1998, Dreamworks released its first traditionally animated movie, Prince of Egypt. Through this movie, children both Christian and non-Christian were introduced to one of the most famous Bible stories of the Old Testament. The songs, likewise, are powerful lessons that could have come straight out of the Bible, but instead were presented to a secular audience for every child to experience and enjoy. These songs included, "When You Believe," "Through Heaven's Eyes," and "Humanity," which taught lessons of faith, compassion and diversity.[16]

In 2000, Dreamworks released the sequel to Prince of Egypt in a direct-to-video movie, Joseph, King of Dreams.[17] Though an official soundtrack was never released for the movie, one of the songs, "Better than I," was picked up by Contemporary Christian music artist Joy Williams and re-recorded for release on her 2001 self-titled album, Joy.[18] It is through these types of songs that we teach our children the laws of wisdom, and so they continue to have a powerful effect on our lives and our growth as human beings.

Lastly, stage productions and plays provide a unique view of the human condition, and their music can bring that human condition into an emotional and powerful perspective. Unlike movies, which often feature action and adventure and special effects, the stars of every stage production are the actors and the characters that they portray. There is nothing to distract the audience from the acting going on before them, and so they get an unhindered view of the drama and raw emotion that is being shared. When playwrights add music to that, it gives the emotion a venue more vital than speech alone. What the audience receives, then, is the result of drama plus music: human emotion at its most intense.[19] It is not a surprise that some of the laments that are found among popular show tunes could probably be transplanted into the middle of the book of Psalms and not look at all out of place.

Using these three styles of secular music, it is easy to see how some of the roles of the psalms have been taken up and filled by secular music, rather than by church music. The biggest and arguably most important role to be filled by secular music is the role of the lament psalms.

Laments: Crying Out to God

During the time of the second temple, the ancient Jews took their laments very seriously. In these songs, the Jews were able to cry out to Yahweh for rescue, healing or protection. These laments were often harsh and blunt, and most began with imperatives such as those in Psalm 55 vv. 1-2a: "Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me…."[20] The laments then proceeded to lay out for Yahweh what has happened to make the singer so miserable, what Yahweh should do about it, and why Yahweh should take action.[21] This genre of psalms makes up almost a third of the Book of Psalms, despite that fact that the Christian church has historically pretended that the lament genre does not exist. One reason why, according to Walter Brueggemann, is that the lament psalms describe a relationship with God that requires a different type of faith than the kind we are taught to have.[22] Evidence for this can be found in any person who has ever advised a friend on their worries with the words, "You just have to have faith." It seems to be an unspoken part of the Christian church's doctrine that faith in God is identical to an unquestioning acceptance of everything God does or does not do.

It is not surprising, then, that music in the Christian church should renew and reinforce the believer's personal faith in God. This has made the topic of what exactly is appropriate content in Christian music a sensitive topic. Put another way, Best explains: "the subject [of Christian music] cannot be disconnected from central matters of faith. Everything done musically bust be defended and critiqued theological and biblically."[23]

As a result of this focus on the appropriate content of Christian music, the laments have been almost entirely left out of the Christian songbooks. They represent moments of a believer's life when he challenges God, crying out to Him to change what He is doing - either by dropping everything and coming to the believer's aid or by ceasing whatever act God is taking that is harming the believer. While some, including Brueggemann, argue that this style of prayer actually exhibits a more powerful faith, because the lamenter has no doubts about coming to God in his misery, the doctrines of the Christian church nevertheless prefer to avoid this idea of questioning God.

When the Church does recognize the power of the laments, it is usually in respect to looking backwards, into the past. The laments are accepted as songs that needed to be sung by the Jews during the exile and then later by the African American slaves and still more recently by the Jews during the holocaust.[24] But the study of the laments appears to be confined to those horrific events that the world can look back on and recognize as a crisis worthy of being lamented. There is no room, it seems, for the laments in the faith of a modern American Christian.

In Christian music, this division between faith and the laments come out in two ways. The first is that there are some topics that very few, if any, Christian music artists will dare to touch on. The second is that when Christian music artists do address particular issues, they will invariably provide the song as a lesson to those listening, and in so doing, miss the actual issue at hand. In his book, Pop Goes the Church, Stevens argues that everyone has filters or glasses that they see and interpret the world through,[25] and this can also be seen in how Christian music artists or song-writers will address a sensitive topic with rose colored glasses - attempting to convince all who hear that no matter what the issue is, God is in control and God will come through. In many ways, by using these filters in how they tell their stories, Christian song-writers are participating in denial - denial that sometimes God doesn't come through, and that sometimes a person's life can crash around them with no sign of God's order anywhere to be found.

The problem this leads to is that when believers do find themselves in the grips of "the valley of the shadow of death,"[26] it is not surprising that these Christian songs, while encouraging, offer no guidance to the one who is currently crying out in the darkness. The ancient Jews needed the lament psalms to express themselves in their anguish, not just during the exile but during all the time, and that medium needed for us today as well. While Christian music cannot fill this role in its current state, the role is nevertheless filled - by secular music. Despite the fact that the laments make up almost a third of the Book of Psalms, laments in today's secular music massively outnumber those found in today's Christian music. The lament, while still necessary and present in our world, has been taken up by the music of the worldly.

My Endless Night: The Personal Lament

A term that is often used to describe those moments of lamenting is "disorientation."[27] Walter Brueggemann first coined the term, combining it with the stages of orientation and re-orientation to describe the cycle of crises of faith that everyone goes through at different points in their lives.

In an article on The Sojourner, Michael Warden also addressed the importance of the disorientation stage in our lives.[28] He compared it to the abyss, one of the stages of the hero's journey in classical rhetoric. Warden's argument is that in order to be a hero, one is required to descend into the abyss at some point or another. Without making it through the abyss, one cannot become a hero. It should not be a surprise, then, that most of the dark laments that you will find in secular music are part of a larger story - the story of a hero. But the truth is that everyone will find themself in the abyss at some point in their life, and that universality gives these songs the power to connect the raw emotions of the hero with everyone who hears his cry.

There are few stories that are as filled with these moments in the abyss as the Broadway stage musical, Rent. While Christians have universally found the play and the resulting movie morally offensive,[29] there is no arguing that the play presents a down and dirty look at life in the alleys of urban America,[30] and the laments found between the Overture and Finale are some of the most heart-wrenching songs to ever grace Broadway's stages. One classic example is "Will I?" The song begins as a single man with AIDs expresses his fears about the future.

"Will I lose my dignity?
Will someone care?
Will I wake tomorrow,
from this nightmare?"[31]

With each progressive verse, the man is joined by more men, then by women, until the words are being sung as a round and in such a way that the music itself seems to leave the listener feeling as disoriented as the characters must be.

A lot of laments can be found among children's entertainment as well. In 2003, children and their parents made their way to the theatres to meet Kenai, a young Inuit hunter who must learn a valuable lesson about respecting people who do not look or think like him. For Kenai, the abyss comes with the realization of the harm he has done, and the sins he has committed:

"There's no way out of this dark place
No hope, no future
I know I can't be free
But I can't see another way
I can't face another day."[32]

What's curious is that, like so many traditional lament psalms, "No Way Out" finishes with an interlude and then an upturn to a positive ending. In this case, it is grace and forgiveness that Kenai is offered, but the ending of the song is nevertheless reminiscent of the final verses of most lament psalms that end by giving praise to Yahweh despite the troubles that they've suffered.

Another secular lament with a classical structure comes from the Broadway stage production of Disney's Lion King, a song that can be placed among both the show tunes and the children's songs. In "Endless Night", Simba mirrors the style of the traditional lament psalms even more closely. His song is directed up at the stars and the being among them that holds a spiritual hold over Simba's life - his father.

"You promised you'd be there
Whenever I needed you
Whenever I call your name
You're not anywhere
I'm trying to hold on
Just waiting to hear your voice
One word, just a word will do
To end this nightmare"[33]

While songs of true lament are everywhere in secular music, they are much harder to find in Christian music, even Contemporary Christian music. In their 2009 single "Always," Building 429 came as close as most Christian song-writers are willing to go into the realm of the laments. But even while dipping their toes into the pool of the broken, the group continues to insist that their faith is strong that God will prevail.

"But I believe always, always
Our Savior never fails
Even when all hope is gone
God knows our pain and His promise remains
He will be with you always"[34]

While there is nothing wrong with the statement that this song makes, what is important to note is that this song would not be considered a lament song, but one of comfort and encouragement. It is a song that, like all others in its genre, feels the need to offer an answer to every one of life's questions that is asked of it. Unfortunately, sometimes the answers just aren't there to be had.

Communal Laments: Common Issues, Uncommon Songs

Each one of the previous examples are referred to here as "individual" lament psalms not just because they express the cry of one individual (or a group of individuals in the case of "Will I?"), but also because the cause of the disorientation of the singer is individualized. Though many people will be able to relate to Simba's feeling of abandonment and despair, fewer have ever been in exactly his position before, as he believes himself to be the cause of his own father's death.

There are also topics and cultural issues that affect a large number of people, and these subjects can often draw out a variety of songs from a variety of points of view and musical genres. The big example of this in the United States today is the number of men, women and children whose loved ones have gone overseas to war. It's not surprising to see the number of songs that come up about that very personal issue - of being the one left behind to maintain the house and pray for their loved one's safe return. What is surprising is to see the different views that these songs can take. Christian music, for example, has very few songs that address this dilemma, this disorientation crisis. One of those few is "Letters from War," by Mark Schultz. The song tells the story of a woman whose only son has gone off to war. A few months later, she receives word that he has been captured. Her response is described as that of a woman whose faith if even greater than her worry for her son.

"And she prayed he was living
Kept on believing
And wrote every night just to say

You are good
And you're brave
what a father that you'll be someday
Make it home
Make it safe
Still she kept writing each day"[35]

At the end of the Schultz's song, the boy comes home after two years of being missing, promoted to captain and then discharged from duty so that he can return to his mother, tote bags stuffed with all of her letters slung over his shoulder. The moral of the song seems to be that if a woman has enough faith, if she prays hard enough and waits long enough, God will bring her boy back safely. It's a beautiful concept, but not one that is capable of reaching most of the women who are in this same position. Their question is both understandable and predictable: "What if he doesn't come back?" Unfortunately, that is a question that Christian music either does not have the answer to or does not wish to share. Instead, the heavy weight of life's hardest questions is left to the secular side of music.

One way for a wife or mother to connect with the disorientation of their son or husband going to war is by stepping back in time and taking a skip across the Atlantic Ocean to France during the industrial revolution.

"God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there

He is young
He's afraid
Let him rest
Heaven blessed.
Bring him home."[36]

"Bring Him Home," presents a beautiful illustration of a man who is pleading with God, and even goes so far as to attempt to bargain with God later on in the song - offering his life for the life of the boy. Valjean's faith is strong, but that doesn't keep him from attempting to call in a favor or two with his God.

There are even more examples of this issue closer to home. Songs about men going to war abound throughout the secular music of the past 5 or 10 years. One of those is "Come Home Soon," by SheDaisy. The song is dedicated to all of those Americans who are currently serving overseas and the families that remain at home, waiting for their return. The interesting part is that while "Come Home Soon" does not provide the answers, nor does it promise the men's safe returns, it does nevertheless offer hope:

"I still imagine your touch
It's beautiful missing something that much
But sometimes love needs a fighting chance
So I'll wait my turn until it's our turn to dance

I walk alone
I try alone
I'll wait for you, don't want to die alone
So please, come home soon"[37]

In this way, SheDaisy is able to put into words and music the emotions being felt by thousands of other men, women and children who are in this same position, and SheDaisy does so by offering hope and faith without giving the answers that they don't have to give. This song provides a salve as "Letters of War" could not.

Finding Faith in Secular Music: It's Nothing New

In Acts 17, Paul is found preaching to a group of Athenian philosophers. In verse 28, Paul states, "'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'"[38] Paul is not quoting the Old Testament here, but he is using lines from Epimenides and Cleanthes, both of whom were popular secular poets of the time (Cleanthes' poem was even a tribute to Zeus!)[39]

Using secular culture to reach those who do not speak the language of the faithful is not a new thing, but using secular culture to enrich the faith of the faithful might be. Nevertheless, secular music continues to play a vital role in most journeys of faith due to the roles that the music plays which fill a gap between what the ancient psalms accomplished and what our Christian music is capable of accomplishing today.

References

Bailey, Wilma Ann. 2005. Music in Christian Worship. Edited by Charlotte Kroeker. The Sorrow Songs: Laments from the Old Testament and the African Experience. Collegeville: Liturgical Press.

Begbie, Jeremy S. 2007. Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.

Best, Harold M. 1993. Music Through the Eyes of Faith. New York: Harper Collins.

Brueggemann, Walter. 1984. The Message of the Psalms. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House.

Building 429. 2008. "Always, Always," in Building 429, performed by Building 429. INO Records, Compact Disc.

Chapman, Brenda & Wells, Simon. 1998. Prince of Egypt, staring Val Kilmer, 100 min. Dreamworks Animated, DVD.

Cockrel, Lisa Ann. 2005. "Rent" Christianity Today. http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/reviews/2005/rent.html (accessed May 5, 2009).

Collins, Phil. 2003. "No Way Out [Single Version]," in Brother Bear performed by Phil Collins. Walt Disney Records, Compact Disc.

DeLuca, Rob & Ramirez, Robert C. 2000. Joseph: King of Dreams, staring Ben Affleck, 75 min. Dreamworks Animated, DVD.

Goldingay, John. 2006. Psalms, vol. 1, Psalms 1-41. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.

Hopkins, Denise Dombkowski. 2002. Journey Through the Psalms. St. Louis: Chalice Press.

Jones, Paul S. 2006. Singing and Making Music: Issues in Church Music Today. Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing.

Kenrick, John. 1996. "A History of the Musical: What is a Musical?" Musicals101.com, revised 2007. http://www.musicals101.com/musical.htm (accessed May 4, 2009).

Larson, Jonathon. 1996. "Will I?", in Rent, Performed by Original Broadway Cast. Dreamworks, Compact Disc.

Mangum, Willie R., Jr. 2005. "Rent" ChristianAnswers.net. https://christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2005/rent2005.html (accessed May 5, 2009).

O'Hara, Paige & Benson, Robby. 2002. Beauty and the Beast, directed by Gary Trousdale, 84 min. Walt Disney Video, DVD.

Point of Grace. 2009. "Point of Grace: Gone Country?" Interview by Country Music Planet. http://www.christianmusicplanet.com/news/stories/11576520/ (accessed on May 4, 2009).

Rice, Tim & John, Elton. 1997. "Endless Night," in The Lion King Broadway Production performed by Original Cast. Avex Trax Japan, Compact Disc.

Roughtstock.com. 2009. "Roughstock's History of Country Music," Cheri Media Group. http://www.roughstock.com/history/ (accessed May 4, 2009).

Saliers, Don E. 2007. Music and Theology. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Schonberg, Claude-Michel & Boublil, Alain. 1990. "Bring Him Home," in Les Miserables (Original London Cast Recording), performed by Colm Wilkinson. DECCA U.S., Compact Disc.

Schultz, Mark. "Letters from War," in Stories and Songs, performed by Mark Schultz. Word Records, Compact Disc.

SheDaisy. 2004. "Come Home Soon," in Sweet Right Here, performed by SheDaisy. Lyric Street, Compact Disc.

Sherman, Richard M. and Sherman, Robert B. 1964. "A Spoonful of Sugar," in Mary Poppins, performed by Julie Roberts, directed by Robert Stevenson. Walt Disney.

Stalling, Carl W. 1933. "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" in The Three Little Pigs, directed by Burt Gillet. Walt Disney.

Stevens, Tim. 2008. Pop Goes the Church: Should The Church Engage Pop Culture? Indianapolis: Power Publishing.

Williams, Joy. 2001. "Better than I", in Joy, Performed by Joy Williams. Reunion Records, Compact Disc.

Wren, Brian. 2000. Praying Twice: The Music and Words of Congregational Song. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.

[1] Jeremy S. Begbie, Resounding Truth: Christian Wisdom in the World of Music (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 60.
[2] John Goldingay, Psalms, vol. 1, Psalms 1-41, (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 60-69.
[3] Don E. Saliers, Music and Theology (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), 33.
[4] Paul S. Jones, Singing and Making Music: Issues in Church Music Today (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2006), 89.
[5] Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984), 52.
[6] Denise Dombkowski Hopkins, Journey Through the Psalms (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2002).
[7] Jeremy S. Begbie, Resounding Truth, 69.
[8] Paul S. Jones, Singing and Making Music, 102.
[9] Brian Wren, Praying Twice: The Music and Words of Congregational Song (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000), 175-188.
[10] Jeremy S. Begbie, Resounding Truth, 60.
[11] Roughtstock.com, "Roughstock's History of Country Music," (Cheri Media Group, 2009), http://www.roughstock.com/history/ (accessed May 4, 2009).
[12] Point of Grace, "Point of Grace: Gone Country?" (Interview by Country Music Planet, April 2009) http://www.christianmusicplanet.com/news/stories/11576520/ (accessed May 4, 2009).
[13] Paige O'Hara & Robby Benson, Beauty and the Beast, directed by Gary Trousdale, 84 min., Walt Disney Video, 2002, DVD.
[14] Carl W. Stalling, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" in The Three Little Pigs, directed by Burt Gillet (Walt Disney) 1933.
[15] Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, "A Spoonful of Sugar," in Mary Poppins, performed by Julie Roberts, directed by Robert Stevenson (Walt Disney) 1964.
[16] Brenda Chapman & Simon Wells, Prince of Egypt, staring Val Kilmer, 100 min. (Dreamworks Animated) 1998, DVD.
[17] Rob DeLuca & Robert C. Ramirez, Joseph: King of Dreams, staring Ben Affleck, 75 min., (Dreamworks Animated) 2000, DVD.
[18] Joy Williams, "Better than I", in Joy, Performed by Joy Williams (Reunion Records) 2001, Compact Disc.
[19] John Kenrick. 1996. "A History of the Musical: What is a Musical?". Musicals101.com. Accessed May 4, 2009. Available at http://www.musicals101.com/musical.htm
[20] Psalms 55:1-2a New International Version
[21] Brueggemann, Message of the Psalms, 54-55.
[22] Brueggemann, Message of the Psalms, 52.
[23] Harold M. Best, Music Through the Eyes of Faith (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), 188.
[24] Wilma Ann Bailey, Music in Christian Worship. Edited by Charlotte Kroeker, The Sorrow Songs: Laments from the Old Testament and the African Experience, (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2005) 75.
[25] Tim Stevens, Pop Goes the Church: Should The Church Engage Pop Culture? (Indianapolis: Power Publishing, 2008) 48.
[26] Psalms 23:4 New International Version
[27] Brueggemann, Message of the Psalms, 19.
[28] Michael Warden, "The Abyss" (The Sojourner Blog, 2009), http://sojournerblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/abyss.html (accessed May 4, 2009).
[29] Willie R. Mangum Jr., "Rent" (ChristianAnswers.net) https://christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2005/rent2005.html (accessed May 5, 2009).
[30] Lisa Ann Cockrel, "Rent" (Christianity Today, 2005), http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/reviews/2005/rent.html (accessed May 5, 2009).
[31] Jonathon Larson, "Will I?", in Rent, Performed by Original Broadway Cast (Dreamworks) 1996, Compact Disc.
[32] Phil Collins, "No Way Out [Single Version]," in Brother Bear performed by Phil Collins (Walt Disney Records) 2003, Compact Disc.
[33] Tim Rice & Elton John, "Endless Night," in The Lion King Broadway Production performed by Original Cast (Avex Trax Japan) 1997, Compact Disc.
[34] Building 429, "Always, Always," in Building 429 performed by Building 429 (INO Records) 2008, Compact Disc.
[35] Mark Schultz, "Letters from War," in Stories and Songs performed by Mark Schultz (Word Records) 2003, Compact Disc.
[36] Claude-Michel Schonberg & Alain Boublil, "Bring Him Home," in Les Miserables (Original London Cast Recording), performed by Colm Wilkinson (DECCA U.S.) 1990, Compact Disc.
[37] SheDaisy, "Come Home Soon," in Sweet Right Here performed by SheDaisy (Lyric Street) 2004, Compact Disc.
[38] Acts 17:28 New International Version
[39] Stevens, Pop Goes the Church, 48.

The Rainbow Bridge

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together. There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor. Those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by. The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent. His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together...

Author Unknown



For many of you who are animal lovers, this passage will likely be a familiar one. The Rainbow Bridge has become a famous and favorite reference among the huge internet community, most especially, it seems, among cat lovers. It is a beautiful vision of hope and joy and peace for the furry children who have given us their love and companionship for their entire lives.

Some people will look to the Bible and claim that there is no evidence that animals have souls and so the animals don't go to heaven like humans do. And perhaps that is so - perhaps there is no BIBLICAL evidence that animals have souls or can go to heaven. But to each person who says that, I would suggest two things. First, take a kitten or a puppy into your home, raise them, care for them, love them. Make them a part of your family. And second, when that cat or dog precedes you and your family into the life thereafter, look your young children straight in the eye and tell them where their favorite friend has gone.

The answer? The Rainbow Bridge.

I have had the blessing of being able to share the lives of my kitties with a community of cat-lovers and gotten a chance to love their kitties in return. We share the happy and the sad in the lives of our furries, and that will always include those unavoidable moments when we have to say goodbye. One of those goodbyes occurred last night, in a house where the beautiful Lola (kitty) had been the inseparable companion of the little Mr. B (for baby) for the first 2 years of Mr. B's life. In her goodbye post, Mr. B and Lola's mother had this to say:

"I told Sean that I think [Lola] will come to say hello to us when we get to the Rainbow Bridge, but I think she'll let us go on, preferring to lay in the sunshine and chase butterflies for many, many, many years to come (God willing) until the big grown up man that Mr B becomes finally meets her there."

The very image of that quote yanks at my heart. It's the spirit of the Rainbow Bridge. Lola will wait as long as she needs to wait, until Mr. B is ready to come home. He probably won't remember her, not in life. But when they meet at the Rainbow Bridge, he'll know her, as if they lived decades together, rather than just two years. And then they will cross the rainbow bridge together...

The Power of "Just"

I've been thinking a lot about the word just recently. It is such a simple word, and yet one with so many definitions. You can't get through a day without using it, and most of the time you may not realize that it's a part of your lingo. But just can be a very dangerous word as well. That's because it is a word that minimizes.

I should note that just can be defined in two broad categories: adjectives and adverbs. An adjective is what you use when you refer to something being right, lawful and based on justice. That is not the form of the word that I am referring to here. Rather, I'm considering the word just when it's used as an adverb. Let's take a look at the definition from www.dictionary.com:

Just
–adverb
9. within a brief preceding time; but a moment before: The sun just came out.
10. exactly or precisely: This is just what I mean.
11. by a narrow margin; barely: The arrow just missed the mark.
12. only or merely: He was just a clerk until he became ambitious.
13. actually; really; positively: The weather is just glorious.

Synonyms include words like: but, merely, simply and only. They are all minimizing the power of the verb that is being described. So? you ask. What's the big problem? The problem is when what you are truly minimizing is the efforts of another human being. Let me explain.

When I was a kid, I struggled with chores that should have been easy to do. They would have been easy to do if I had actually done them. But I struggled with the initiative to do them. That's part of what defines an ADHD mind - you lack the dopamine to start menial tasks that are un-exciting to you. We didn't know that I had ADHD at the time, so my dad's favorite phrase was "just do it." To this day, I hate that phrase. My father never meant to insult me with those words. He never called me lazy or irresponsible. He thought he was encouraging me to accomplish a task that would be easy if I could just get started on it. But he didn't comprehend that getting started on it was exactly the task that I couldn't do.

For years I have expressed my opinion about how dangerous the phrase "just do it" really is. It isn't the encouragement that you think it is. By saying it, you are minimizing the challenges that the person is facing - challenges that you likely can't even comprehend. What I didn't realize until recently is how much broader this argument can go.

Just last month, I was in my Normal Human Growth and Development class and I mentioned my aversion to those three words: "Just do it." I said it not expecting others to relate, since I knew that I was the only person diagnosed with ADHD in the class. I was surprised, however, when one of my classmates spoke up and told her story:

This classmate is a mother of four, and her two youngest children were adopted from an abusive mother. The youngest was by far the worst off and when she took this newly adopted girl to the pediatrician for the first time, the pediatrician's multitude pieces of advice included these words: "Remove the word "just" from your vocabulary. Nothing will ever be as easy as 'just' for this child." My classmate concluded her story by saying that the pediatrician was correct. Years later, this youngest child was starting school and doing far better than she would have been doing if his loving mother hadn't adopted her, but her life would always be more difficult than a child who hadn't been abused for the first two years of their life. Developmentally, socially, emotionally, mentally, this child would never be able to "just" anything.

My reaction to this story was two-fold. First, I was in awe at the wisdom of this pediatrician. While I had heard of other adults with ADHD expressing similar dislike of my least favorite phrase, I had never heard of a doctor explaining the phenomenon to a worried mother.

My second reaction was to re-evaluate my least favorite phrase, and I realized that, just as the pediatrician had explained to my classmate, it was not the phrase that offended me as much as that one word: just.

As an aspiring counselor, I have continued to consider the ramifications of this one word. "Just." And I'm coming to realize how careful we must be whenever we use it. It is true that the word just can be used in a way that offers no negative connotation, ("If you just want to toss the spreadsheet to me via e-mail, I can print the nametags off of that.") But whenever we craft our words to describe the amount of effort that we believe is required in a given action, then we threaten to minimize that effort on the part of someone else. And how can we ever comprehend the challenges that another person faces?

Cross Culture Conflicts: Science, Politics and ADHD

NOTE: This brainsplat of mine is aimed at a couple different audiences. But I've written it all together here. I'll post pieces of it elsewhere in approapriate settings

In studying for my cross-cultural counseling midterm, I've been reading over Duane Elmer's Cross-Cultural Conflict. There are a couple of (random) connections that I've made and I'll admit that I'm not comfortable with most of them. But, nevertheless, they are lessons to be learned, I think.

The Cross-Cultural Conflicts Between Religion and Science:

One comment I found intriguing (and that holds no little amount of wisdom) is Elmer's point that westerners (that is, people living in the "western world" like the US and Europe), are so often driven to understand In studying for my cross-cultural counseling midterm, I've been reading over Duane Elmer's Cross-Cultural Conflict. There are a couple of connections that I've made and I'll admit that I'm not comfortable with most of them. But, nevertheless, they are lessons to be learned, I think.

One comment I found intriguing (and that holds no little amount of wisdom) is Elmer's point that westerners (that is, people living in the "western world" like the US and Europe), are more often driven to have black and white answers than other cultures.

"The Western mind finds particular delight in providing answers to questions. An unanswered question is scandalous, so the mind quickly supplies its own answer from its own form of logic, its own cultural assumptions and its own value system." (Elmer, 1984)

In this quote, I couldn't help remembering the recent "debate" that I have had with my close Christian friends about creation vs. evolution. In that debate, and in so many others that I have heard, it seems to me that the largest issue is that these black and white Christians aren't willing to accept that science isn't supposed to know everything. "It's just a theory." "You can't prove anything." Trying to correct their misassumptions about how science works is like… worse than pulling teeth. And it doesn't help that in the scientific community, it is a big no-no to state anything with absolute certainty. That is a view that scientists take seriously, they live the idea that they are looking for answers - not necessarily finding them. Suddenly, I think I understand why this debate has gone on for so long - it's not a case of a different language (as I used to think). It's a case of a different culture - a different world view!

Winning and Losing in a Cross-Cultural Setting

A little bit later, Elmer talks about how different types of people handle conflict in the western world. His description of the win-lose type really dug at me, for a couple of reasons.

"Win-lose people assume that everything should be seen as right or wrong. They have a very small "gray" area and tend not to be very flexible or even willing to negotiate. Everything must be judged as right or wrong, even obvious differences; thus it follows that everything that is "like me" will be judged as right and everything "unlike me" will be judged as wrong. Such people have little tolerance for ambiguity. Right and wrong must be determined as quickly as possible so one knows how to treat the matter or the person." (Elmer 1984)

I made two connections with this quote, but they really both begin with the elections. During the recently 2008 presidential elections, race was a big factor. Perhaps not for everyone. I know it was not a deciding factor for me. I know it was not a deciding factor for white friends who voted for either side. As for blacks, I honestly don’t know. I don’t have enough black friends to ask. But I do remember the news story about black women who were being ostracized for supporting McCain. Did it go the other way? Probably. Are there socio-economic reasons for the way most of the black population voted? I have no doubt about it. My point is that while we can't stereotype how blacks and whites vote or how the elections came out (nor do I care to), there is no doubt that the view we got from the media most certainly did that.

Now, with that in mind, think about how many African Americans view Obama's presidency as a "victory" specifically for them. And remember how competitive our culture is. The celebrations that the media showed after the elections put some of the largest Superbowl parties to shame! The Superbowl is a competitive sport. It's win-lose. The presidential elections should not be, and yet I must confess that there are times after the elections when I would hear an African American say something about it being "their" victory, it would rub me the wrong way.

The only reason I'm bringing this up is that this topic sort of came up in class a couple months back. One of the other few whites in my class commented that he had seen an African American woman wearing a shirt with Obama on the front and the words "MLK Jr's dream has come true," and my classmate admitted that he wasn't offended, but he was frustrated, because to him, this woman didn't understand what the dream was about. The 2/3rds of our class made up of African American women, however, immediately informed him that she most certainly DID understand what MLK's dream meant. And we learned the lesson about how misunderstandings persisted among cultures and moved on with the class lesson. But that conversation has bothered me because I am very much on my white classmate's side.

It has taken me some time to figure out why, and I think this quote from Elmer finally cinched it for me. The shirt - the idea of victory - means something different to blacks than it does to whites. In our western white culture, if you win it means that your opponent has lost. And if you show it off excessively, then you are rubbing it in. Did any of you play soccer as children? Do you remember the chant you yelled at the beginning and ending of each game? "2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate?" Then you'd yell out the name of the other team. Then at the end of the game, you'd run down the line, slapping everyone's hands and telling them "good game". Our culture might be a competitive, individualistic one, but we are still taught how important it is to honor and respect our opponent. We are taught to be happy for other people's successes, true, but there is also such thing as a "poor winner". The catch is that I think the concept of what a "poor winner" is is very different in the western cultures from the African American cultures. I'm not saying that either side is wrong. Just that it has helped me to understand why they are different, and I think it is important for us all to understand how those differences can lead to anger and hurt and hard feelings.

Why I Hate Politics

Now, for my second connection to the elections, or more specifically, politics. I won't go into it in dept, because I've already ranted a little bit. But there are people who are so politically entrenched that they'll take every available opportunity to insult the other side and to lecture to people who have never once argued with them - as if just to hear themselves talk. It's… getting tiring, to be honest. But they are my friends and I love them. Even if I am taking notes on how NOT to raise my children…

ADHD: Individualistic or Collectivistic?

Lastly, I have one more connection to throw out. And this one is more of a ponderance (new word, hee!), a question.

Among the types of conflict resolves, Elmer also discusses the one who "gives in" and the one who "compromises" (two different types). Elmer describes giving in as someone who might admit that he or she can see the other person's point of view, and he describes the compromiser as someone who believes that every conversation should be settled by compromise - in which no one goes home happier than the others (this is not, according to Elmer, the same as a win-win conclusion).

Now, my thoughts have turned to ADHD. In 4 Weeks to an Organized Life with ADHD (a great book, by the way!), the authors talk about how the ADHD mind is uniquely capable of seeing the world from all directions and in the same way, seeing situations from all points of view. This makes them gifted counselors and very empathic, but makes it very hard for them to take a side in many arguments. Wow. Does that describe anyone else? Here I am getting a degree in Christian Counseling, but I can't even take a stand on most political controversies.

Which leads me to a very odd question - Does ADHD have more weight here in the individualistic part of the world than it would in other collectivistic cultures? Let me back up by describing a question that Elmer poses at the beginning of an earlier chapter: Which is the worse sin - lying or losing your temper?

Well? I'm curious what your reactions are. Which is worse?

I thought about it, and the counselor in me knew that sometimes you can't be entirely honest. But you DO have to be respectful of other people's feelings, so losing your temper would be worse. What was your answer? Now, imagine my surprise when Elmer explained that most people in the western world would saying lying is worse because our individualistic culture puts an emphasis on truth. But the other 2/3rds of the world puts an emphasis on relationships, so losing your temper is worse, because it could cause a schism between the relationship.

I think you can all imagine where I am going with this. Does ADHD actually fit better into a relationship-focused culture? On the one hand, I know I am not the only one who has trouble with relationships, but how much of that is because of the individualistic demands that our culture places on those relationships? How many of our troubles with relationships are because of physical actions that we forget to take or things we lose versus how many are because we spoke out of turn or performed a relational taboo? I honestly don't know. It's something I'm going to have to think about.

Psalm 30: The Abyss (My Homily)

Where has the starlight gone?
Dark is the day
How can I find my way home?

Home is an empty dream
Lost to the night
Father, I feel so alone

When will the dawning break
Oh endless night
Sleepless I dream of the day

When you were by my side
Guiding my path
Father, I can't find the way

You promised you'd be there
Whenever I needed you
Whenever I call your name
You're not anywhere

I'm trying to hold on
Just waiting to hear your voice
One word, just a word will do
To end this nightmare

Good evening.

Those words are the lyrics to the song Endless Night, from the Broadway stage production of The Lion King. If you get a chance to listen to the song sometime, I strongly recommend it - it's one of my all-time favorites. Between the music and the lyrics, you can really feel Simba's desperation and anxiety, and I am willing to bet it's a feeling that we have all been able to relate to at one time or another.

Psalm 30 refers to it as "the pit". Michael Warden, a Christian Coach and writer from Gateway Church in Austin, refers to it as "the abyss". The abyss can hit us in many different ways. Sometimes we find ourselves there because of financial crisis. Other times from the physical pain of illness or injury, or the emotional pain of the loss of loved ones. And still other times through fear for our own life. Our abysses, our endless nights, are all different, but they share some similarities as well. I'd like to share with you an excerpt from Mr. Warden's blog, The Sojourner, in which he talks about his friend, Gandalf, who is going through a particularly dark and painful time.


Gandalf asked me yesterday if I thought he was in the Abyss--one of the stages of the Hero's Journey. Also called the Supreme Ordeal, the Innermost Cave, the Belly of the Whale. It's a singularly awful place, as full of stench and bile and rotting flesh as any fish's belly you could imagine.

I told him yes. I do think he's in the Abyss stage of the Hero's Journey. As I told him this, a part of me thought I should be glad for him--I mean, he is a hero, after all, and he is on the journey every hero must take. But I'm not glad; I'm just angry. And sad.

The Abyss, the Supreme Ordeal, the Innermost Cave...Despite their dark overtones they all still sound so mythic and pure--a final test of valor that calls you forth to face the dragon and makes you look very noble indeed. I mean, what's not to admire about a hero facing down a dragon?

But the real Abyss, the real Supreme Ordeal, looks nothing like that. It's not noble; it's humiliation at its worst.

Life is beautiful, but it is not fair. Some people are unreasonably blessed--charmed, as it were, to live a life of ease and prosperity. On the other end, however, there are those who are unreasonably battered by life. And this is where the Abyss of the Hero's Journey shows its true colors. For the Supreme Ordeal that the hero must face comes not head on, but from the side. It hits him in unexpected places, in ways that are, first and foremost, utterly unfair. It breaks all the rules. Its intent, you quickly realize, is not to best you in your strength, but to demoralize and humiliate you in an area of unexpected weakness, and to do it in such an extreme way that you simply lose any strength or will to go on.

It is the quintessential low blow. It's not pretty. It's not valorous or noble. It's ugly and humiliating and gritty and very, very real.

Still want to be a hero?

Yes. I do. Despite all this, I do. And I know Gandalf does as well. Because, as awful as the Abyss is, or can be, one simple truth holds the hero to the path: The Abyss is not the end of the story.

It tries to make you believe it is. That's the goal of the Abyss, by the way: to make you believe you've reached the end of all hope. The last stop. The place of absolute, irreversible failure and loss. And there is a kind of death that you must indeed pass through in this stage, so it definitely feels like the end of the story...at least, the end of the story as you have known it. But the true hero knows that resurrection awaits on the other side. And so, even though he may die, his hope does not. He trusts that there is still more story to be told.


"The hero trusts that there is still more story to be told." What a beautiful thought.

Simba knew this, too, by the way. His song, Endless Night, ends thus:

I know that the night must end
And that the sun will rise

I know that the clouds must clear
And that the sun will shine

I know that the night must end
I know that the sun will rise
And I'll hear your voice deep inside

My favorite bible verse as a child was Psalm 30, verse 5. "For His anger is but for a moment. His favor lasts a lifetime. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning."

Sometimes it seems like the night is endless, like the dawn will never come. Sometimes the abyss seems to go on and on, with no end in sight, no light at the end of this dark, dark tunnel. But we know that this is not the end of the story. And we can take courage, strength and hope in the knowledge that God always - ALWAYS - has the last word.

Psalm 30: The Abyss

In my Tuesday classes, we have a devotional before each class, but they aren't assigned. Whoever has a verse or a thought to offer just does so. Last week, before Human Growth and Development, I offered to do the devotional. I had been thinking about it for a week, and so I read Psalm 30 and told the story about why Psalm 30:5 is my favorite verse.

When I was a kid, I remember getting into a fight with my dad (as any kid is going to do at some point in their childhood). I was sent to my room and when I was told that dinner was ready, I stubbornly replied that I wasn't hungry and I refused to come out of my room. In my childish tempertantrum, I remember reaching for my Bible. I just opened it up to a random page and jabbed my finger at a random verse. What I came up with was Psalm 30:5.

"For His anger is but for a moment; His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning."

I don't think I went back to read the whole chapter, but I didn't need to. In my young mind, that verse said everything that I needed to hear and I realized the truth in it - that in the morning, the night before would be just a memory and I would feel much better.

All these years later, I still keep that verse near at heart, and when comforting friends who are struggling with hard times, I have often suggested that they "sleep on it". In sleep, our minds and our hearts have the ability to both recharge and unconsciously put things in perspective.

This was the small little devotional that I told to my class. Once I was done, we began to talk about our plans for the chapel service, which our class would be hosting next week (i.e. tonight). That's when I looked down at the sheet that Dr. Hammond had handed out with the week's lectionary Bible verses. The first on the list? Psalm 30.

At first, I was appalled and embarrased. "That was not intentional" I insisted, but Dr. Hammond just laughed. She knew it wasn't, and she insisted that it was just one of those small little miracles. In the following discussion about chapel service plans, I agreed to be responsible for the homily. That's tonight. I have been going over it in my head all week and I finally sat down to write it out. Pray for me? I've never done a sermon or homily before.

Roleplaying as a psychiatric excercise - A case study.

I have come to a ground shattering realization.

Okay, not really, but it's a philosophy that I've held for a while that is really hitting home right now. I have decided that roleplay is a psychiatric exercise.

I'm not talking about the simple little "what would you do" exercises that you use with children or the "empty chair" exercise that you use in counseling. I'm talking about all out, hard core, RPGs - roleplaying games. For those of you not familiar with the genre, I will use the term RPG in this post to refer to any game or hobby that requires one to develop a complex fictitious character, including stats, background, appearance and personality, and then bring that character to life through fluid roleplay. This category includes MUSHes & MOOs, White Wolf games and, of course, Dungeons and Dragons. Some of these games are more roleplay developed than others, but the more developed they are, the better the psychiatric exercise.

Shall I offer an example? Case Study #1: Myself.

I first learned to play D&D when I was in grad school. I had roleplayed online for many years and loved it, but I had always wanted to experience the face-to-face socialization that came with Dungeons and Dragons. I found a group and they became my close friends for the next year and a half - almost as close as the character that came to life every Saturday night.

Her name was Nyara, and she was an outcast. None of this was my doing, really. I had wanted to create a perfect character - doesn't everyone want to do well at something that they are trying for the first time? But to be honest, that wasn't my only reason for wanting a flawless character. The truth is that I was feeling very insecure myself. I was totally on my own. I had a new apartment in a new city in a new state halfway across the country from my home and family. I was at a new school surrounded by other graduate students who all knew more than me, who were much better prepared for 2-4 years locked in a lab than me. I was intimidated, oh, was I. And it didn't help that I had a rough year and a half in general. So, yeah, it was important to me that I have a happy little faerie tale to come to once a week. That didn't so much happen.

Instead, I got Nyara. Through circumstances mostly out of my control, she became a demon-blooded half-drow shadow priestess. CG, of course. An innocent girl, barely a woman, running from forces she could not understand. And all the time, the only other character who trusted her and accepted her was Maxine, the paladin. Of this relationship, I have two important points to make. First, I remember that when Nyara was first revealed, everyone was upset. Eventually, Maxine and Nyara talked and I remember Susi (Maxine's player) telling the GM: "Maxine is only angry with Nyara because Maxine thinks she lied to us. Once she sits down and talks to her, and it comes out that Nyara didn't even know what she is, then Maxine will take Nyara under her wing and protect her." Wow. I'm not even sure what to say about that, except that those words have stuck with me all these years.

The second thing I would point out is that Susi was, in so many ways, the same to me that Maxine was to Nyara. She claimed me as her friend even though we were so different. Her morals, under other circumstances, might have been blaringly different from mine, but she looked at me and saw an innocent little girl who needed support and protection.

Through Nyara, I worked my way through some very dark times. She was a shadowpriestess and she stubbornly insisted that "darkness" is not necessarily evil. It just represents the unknown and so it causes us to fear it. I, meanwhile, was facing plain old darkness. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't do what any other responsible and intelligent young adult should be able to do. Every day was filled with nervousness, anxiety and fear. Not to mention depression. And I can place the fact that I came through it all squarely on the shoulders of God, who gave me the strength to get out of bed each morning, and Nyara, who taught me how to walk through the fire… or rather, the darkest night.

Several years later and in a land far far away… I was in Texas, looking for a job and getting my newly diagnosed ADHD under control. I had found a cool D&D group in my neighborhood and I still rely very much on their friendship and support. I also got involved in an online D&D game with some other friends, and that is where Adriel was born.

Adriel is Nyara's daughter. Raised in the orphanage that Nyara founded, after her mother died giving birth to her, Adriel knows she is different, but she, quite frankly, doesn't care. She has her morals (and they are the same as her mother's), and if you don't like them, well that's not her problem, is it? Adriel is witty and sarcastic and self-confident and a born leader of the other player characters, and of the network of orphans that make up the various cities around her home country. In Adriel, I found exactly what I needed at that time of my life. The stubborn determination to be who I was meant to be - and to figure out who that person was. I didn't now where I was going, but I would get there, darn it! And Adriel helped me get there, both mentally and emotionally.

I just recently came to the realization that there is a very real reason why I had to go through Nyara before I could meet Adriel. It is, I think, parallel to the idea that we need the laments in the book of Psalms as much as we need the praise or thanksgiving psalms. As my professor, Dr. Pitts, put it, "If you are counseling and a man comes in and says, 'I suck. I'm a total loser,' your first response should NOT be 'No, you aren't!' Sometimes we need to be in the mud, to sit in the mud. Until we are ready to get out of the mud. As counselors, we can't pull our patients out of the mud until they are ready. Until then, we have to get into the mud with them." And that is where the lament psalms come in. I believe, now, that it is also where Nyara came in. Everything has a right time and place - even the darkness.

So. Fast forward. Adriel was retired two years ago. I've continued to play D&D, but it's become a game and a social exercise more than anything else. Recently, I began running games for my neighborhood group, and that's been a whole new mindset to learn. My life, too, has slowly been settling, and I'm on the road that (I hope) will get me where God wants me to be.

I am now preparing to join a new online D&D group, and I'm going through the character development process. I've just finished fine-tuning my character background this morning. If you want to read the full thing, it should be available on the game website soon (I'll keep you informed when it is). But the long and short of it is that this is Leah, a girl whose life is filled with unfortunate events, mishaps and accidents. She was given up by her parents to be raised by monks, for whom she caused nothing but trouble, despite her good intentions. She was sent to be trained as a cleric and that was a disaster, so they sent her back to the monks. After a rather large disaster at the abbey, Leah was taken in as a wizard's apprentice and though she did okay, she couldn't master that talent, either. Eventually, she discovered that her magical abilities were inborn and wild and could not be trained like a wizard's abilities are. She set off on her own and... the rest is history. Or it will be soon.

The curious thing that evolved as I wrote Leah's history is the concept of her accidents. To many people, she seems so enormously clumsy. She tries to do something simple and normal and will almost always screw it up. Is it mental? Physical? Or due to the magical tension of her uncontrolled magical abilities? Who knows, but it definitely gives her a hard time, handicapping her in a way that most people can't understand.

Now, let's take a detour. Check out the following exerpt from this story that I posted, several years ago, on the adult_adhd lj community that I'm a member of:

When I was a kid, we had a hill at the end of our court. It was small for a hill (that is, when you are living in the Napa Valley) but you usually had to stop for breath halfway up and it definitely caused a burn in the calves. I feel as though every time someone tells me to "just do it" it's got this negative connotation: "It's just a hill, you just have to get up off your butt and do it. Yes, it's tiring, but everyone else has to do it, it's the way life is. How can you be so lazy/irresponsible/stupid that you can't do what everyone else can do?" Grrr. It's just the connotation that annoys me.

Anyway, I realized that for people with ADD, there is no hill. I can assure you, I've looked and looked and looked: I see no hill. Instead, we get a mountain. And getting over this mountain is not as simple as 'just do it'. We can't just walk up the hill. We have to rock climb up the mountain face. Yes, it's possible. Yes, we can physically do it. But it's not that simple. To make it a way of life, to accomplish what is routine to everyone else, we have to find a way to reorganize our lives and our habits and get the outside support we need so that instead of rock climbing, we have found or carved a mountain trail over the mountain. It'll still be harder than everyone else who just has a hill to walk over, but at least we aren't out there with picks and hammers.

The problem is that for me, with my ADD, I'm currently standing in a valley surrounded by mountains. I'm unemployed and trying to figure out where the job is that'll help me afford to go back to school to get the degree I want to get to the career I want. Everyone's telling me to 'just do it' -- "You have to get a job, Jenn. How hard is it to get a job? You can't live here forever." But I can't figure out what job I'm supposed to find. Everything I've tried I'm not qualified for or won't work with me or doesn't pay nearly enough to support myself, my two cats, and my medical bills. "Just do it?" Hah! Not only am I trying to climb a mountain, I don't even know which direction I'm supposed to be climbing. North? South? East? West? I feel like I manage to mountain climb up one face, only to find that it's completely impassable halfway up and have to come back down and try some other random direction. To make things worse, I also am fighting depression. Which means, while ADD gives me these mountains to overcome, my depression makes these mountains f***ing scary!

I had forgotten about this post until I was putting the finishing touches on Leah's background. And when I went back to read it, I was blown away. Like, totally stunned. Am I the only one who sees the similarities? I don't think so. And so, I realize that my character is once again an unconscious shadow of the frame of mind my life is currently in. I'm finally at a point in my life where I know where I am going and I hope - pray - that I can have the strength and courage and determination to make it there. No more failures, no more switchbacks on that mountain trail. And Leah? She's exactly where I am. She understands where she is, why she is. Now she just has to prove it - to herself, and to everyone else. We both have a long way to go, Leah and I. But we will get there together.

My Thoughts on the Psalms, Part I

This semester in Psalms class, we're going to be writing journal entries on the psalms that we read. I have been thinking and listening to my music and I am struck by how much so many of the songs on my playlist have the power that we talk about being present in the psalms. And I'm thinking of taking each journal entry and finding a song that each psalm reminds me of. For now, I'm trying to make a list of songs and I think it's a very interesting exercise, so I wanted to share.

Today's post is all about modern lament songs, primarily in showtunes (Broadway and movies). The key here is that each lament psalm in the bible actually ends with a stipulation of trust in God, despite the string of complaints. It seems so foreign to us, so contradictory... but should it? Check it out:

Endless Night (Lion King) - Lament

You promised you'd be there
Whenever I needed you
Whenever I call your name
You're not anywhere

I'm trying to hold on
Just waiting to hear your voice
One word, just a word will do
To end this nightmare

I know that the night must end
And that the sun will rise
I know that the clouds must clear
And that the sun will shine

I know that the night must end
I know that the sun will rise
And I'll hear your voice deep inside


Close Every Door (Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat)

Close every door to me,
Hide all the world from me
Bar all the windows
And shut out the light
Do what you want with me,
Hate me and laugh at me
Darken my daytime
And torture my night

Close every door to me,
Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel
Are never alone
For we know we shall find
Our own peace of mind
For we have been promised
A land of our own


At first, those two songs were the only songs I could find that showed the same hopeful upbeat on the tail of a lament. No other "sad" songs seem to show that... or do they? Upon further digging, I've found that most of our modern showtunes do show that upturn from complaint to trust - it's just located in a second song.


Will I? (Rent)
(located early in Act 1)

Will I lose my dignity
Will someone care
Will I wake tomorrow
From this nightmare?

Finale B (Rent)
(located at the very end of Act 2)

Men (Women are singing different lyrics):
Will I Lose My Dignity
Will Someone Care
Will I Wake Tomorrow
From This Nightmare
There's Only Now
There's Only Here
Give In To Love
Or Live In Fear
No Other Path
No Other Way
No Day But Today
No Day But Today
No Day But Today…


Another example is No Way Out from Brother Bear. In this song, the original lyrics from the song end with the first verse that I've listed. The song has a very distinct place in the story, before the resolution of the plot. The single version of the song, however, adds two more verses that give the entire song the conclusion required to be a proper lament psalm. The difference here is that the "complaint" is more of mourning for actions taken and bridges burned. But the emotions are still tangent and on the "edge of emotional coping" (Brueggeman, 2002?), so I think it qualifies as a lament.


No Way Out (Single Version) (Brother Bear) - Lament

There's no way out of this dark place
No hope, no future
I know I can't be free
But I can't see another way
I can't face another day

I know it's hard, but you found somehow
To look into your heart
And to forgive me now
You've given me the strength to see
Just where my journey ends
You've given me the strength to carry on

I see the path from this dark place
I see my future
Your forgiveness has set me free
Oh, and I can see another way,
I can face another day!


Another thing I've found interesting in my lessons of the psalms is Brueggeman's concept of Orientation to Disorientation to Reorientation. From hymns (God is great!) to laments (Where are you, God?!) to psalms of thanksgiving (Give thanks for God has ). That's the basis of the cycle that we continue to go through all of our lives. And Brueggemann's argument is that we can't move on to reorientation until we have embraced our disorientation. The reason I am explaining this is that this next pair of songs rings strangely true to Brueggemann's description. Here you have two songs of disorientation that lead to reorientation. But the reorientation that each man finds is very different from the other. It's a point made poignant in the play, but one that can hold even more power when read from the view of the psalms.


What have I done? Valjean's Soliloquy (Les Miserables)

(Valjean is released from prison after 20 years and taken in by a priest. He steals the priest's silver candlesticks, only to be caught by guards. Instead of condemning the thief, the priest tells the guards that he gave Valjean the silver and then tells Valjean the only stipulation is that he use the silver for good.)

Valjean:
What have I done?
Sweet Jesus, what have I done?
Become a thief in the night
Become a dog on the run
And have I fallen so far
And is the hour so late
That nothing remains but the cry of my hate,
The cries in the dark that nobody hears,
Here where I stand at the turning of the years?
If there's another way to go
I missed it twenty long years ago
My life was a war that could never be won
They gave me a number and murdered Valjean
When they chained me and left me for dead
Just for stealing a mouthful of bread

Yet why did I allow that man
To touch my soul and teach me love?
He treated me like any other
He gave me his trust
He called me brother
My life he claims for God above
Can such things be?
For I had come to hate this world
This world which had always hated me
Take an eye for an eye!
Turn your heart into stone!
This is all I have lived for!
This is all I have known!

One word from him and I'd be back
Beneath the lash, upon the rack
Instead he offers me my freedom,
I feel my shame inside me like a knife
He told me that I have a soul,
How does he know?
What spirit came to move my life?
Is there another way to go?

I am reaching, but I fall
And the night is closing in
And I stare into the void
To the whirlpool of my sin
I'll escape now from the world
From the world of Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean is nothing now
Another story must begin!

(Valjean then "disappears" and remakes his identity into that of a well-to-do business man, but he never forgets his roots)


Javert's Suicide: Soliloquy (Les Miserables)

(Much later in the play, after Javert has hunted Valjean for many years; Javert is caught by young freedom fighters and Valjean convinces the boys to give Javert's fate to him, then lets Javert go free.)

Javert:
Who is this man?
What sort of devil is he
To have me caught in a trap
And choose to let me go free?
It was his hour at last
To put a seal on my fate
Wipe out the past
And wash me clean off the slate!
All it would take
Was a flick of his knife.
Vengeance was his
And he gave me back my life!

Damned if I'll live in the debt of a thief!
Damned if I'll yield at the end of the chase.
I am the Law and the Law is not mocked
I'll spit his pity right back in his face
There is nothing on earth that we share
It is either Valjean or Javert!

How can I now allow this man
To hold dominion over me?
This desperate man whom I have hunted
He gave me my life. He gave me freedom.
I should have perished by his hand
It was his right.
It was my right to die as well
Instead I live... but live in hell.

And my thoughts fly apart
Can this man be believed?
Shall his sins be forgiven?
Shall his crimes be reprieved?

And must I now begin to doubt,
Who never doubted all these years?
My heart is stone and still it trembles
The world I have known is lost in shadow.
Is he from heaven or from hell?
And does he know
That granting me my life today
This man has killed me even so?

I am reaching, but I fall
And the stars are black and cold
As I stare into the void
Of a world that cannot hold
I'll escape now from the world
From the world of Jean Valjean.
There is nowhere I can turn
There is no way to go on....

(Javert throws himself into the swollen river)



And to finish off this post, here are some more of the songs that I've discovered:

Why, God, Why? (Miss Saigon) - Lament
Over My Head (Titan AE) - Lament
Another Day (Rent)
Home (Beauty and the Beast)
If I Can't Love Her (Beauty and the Beast) - Lament
Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again (Phantom of the Opera)
Empty Chairs at Empty Tables (Les Miserables) - Lament

The funny thing is that I have a much easier time finding laments than songs of praise or thanksgiving. I wonder why that is…