Why not listen to this classic track https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FgDles4xq8 from Boney M.
This passage of Psalm 137 probably originates from the period 587-539 BCE. Their captors are pleading for them to sing a song but they can’t. People are saying that they should sing for them when they are really troubled. But they’ve been in captivity for so long, they are hurting. They need to return to normality – there’s a phrase… “Cheer up, it’ll get better, have a cry and you’ll feel better, you’ll get over this”. We may have all heard this in our time.
Waterfall of Grief
When in reality they and us, we need to grieve. Grief is a chaotic process which academic books might suggest is a linear passage, where if we go through each stage we will be fine.
I think it is more like a raging waterfall which flows into a pool of water.
The tumbling water energises the calm serenity of water below. If we are in that pool of water, we can be tumbled and tossed this way and that. Just as we think we have it all under control once again, we are sucked under by an invisible eddy current. This isn’t a time when we need to exit the pool fast but one where we remain within so we can grow. Eventually we will naturally exit by a stream where we can gather strength and sit down by the banks and thank God. Can we say “you’ll get over this”?
Do we get over grief or do we get bigger?
That trauma of the past may be large now, and so it will be as it contains all of our memories, jumbled at times but still painful. However, we will grow: we will grow as we rationalise those thoughts and over time, see that from pain we will find hope in the future in remembrance.
The Israelites in this passage articulated their pain rather than hide their feelings – they wept – they even suggested revenge. Albeit there is no evidence that they carried any of this out. But by expressing it they broke the cycle of deep set anger. They broke the pattern of denial we can all so easily get locked into, by daring to say how overwhelming their loss was to them. By doing this they allowed others to also resonate, with those feelings trapped and locked away. Is this a way of “you’ll get over this”?
Being vulnerable
This brutally honest Psalm speaks of being vulnerable, allowing others to see our grief – plain to see – because it is normal. It is normal to cry but society has suppressed that outpouring. In the Middle East it is normal to wail, but in the West it is critiqued as being excessively open, embarrassing strangers. When we feel injustice, especially with death, we need time to express our emotions, we need a way of venting to allow us all to flourish.
I found the dialogue interesting I enjoyed it