Richard Mallory

For the brokenness of the daughter of my people
I am broken,
I mourn, and horror has seized me.
Is there no balm in Gilead?
—Jeremiah 8:21-22

For my people

Yes, all shall be well,
and all manner of things shall be well.
But when the pretty blonde woman on TV says everything’s fine
that’s not what she means. She’s lying.
For before all manner of things shall be well,
first we will be cruel.

For our willingness to harm,
and for those crushed by our cruelty,
my heart is broken.
For children purposefully starved,
for terror calculated as policy,
for earth scorched and abused,
horror has seized me.
For the greed and the lies of the powerful,
for the vacant stare of the destitute,
I am broken.

Let my grief be holy, my sorrow be my prayer.
Before it congeals into rage, let it weep.
This great collapse within me,
this trembling, this irruption of emptiness,
is the heart of God—not wrath, but sorrow.
For my people, and yes, I am among them,
I am broken.

And this is my power: not anger but love.
This great wound is the openness,
where flows the blood of the Lamb,
that heals the world.

Dearly Beloved,

In this exegesis via poetry on today’s Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah, pastor-poet Steve Garnaas-Holmes accepts and honors grief and sorrow. He “plows” both back into his prayer. In every life, sadness happens. There is no escape. When it comes, watch out for self judgment: “I guess I”m not ‘Christian’ enough,” or all the variations on this theme that do not serve.

The “pretty blonde” is glib, always smiling, perky and upbeat. Unfortunately she (there are plenty of versions of this from the male side of the aisle) poses as a phony icon. No one can maintain chirpy happiness 24/7 unless they are posing and not authentically connecting to themselves.

American society doesn’t want to know about brokenness but if it is not allowed to surface, it will fester and affect well-being negatively.

This poet-pastor even regards his sorrow as God-given. He takes it into his prayer so that it does not “congeal into rage.”

The greater power is love—not anger. Anger, now adopted and recommended by many influencers, is upheld as a dark spirituality. Though enticing, it will eventually boomerang back upon a person for no good end.

In this “great wound” is fertile and holy ground for the healing of/from Christ.

Grace and Peace to you,

—Richard