Loss and Lament Services — a new experience

Death is harsh, and one can never fully be ready for it.

Grief is awkward — the kind of awkward that is the cumulative effect of feeling weak, sorry, guilty, vulnerable, being a sore burden and more.

Loss is universal, who has not felt it, even if we at first did not recognize it as such?

Yet nothing disarms and connects us to God and each other as sharing in suffering. It is as if our souls have a wire that lights and burns a life-giving glow when the touchpoints of our pain connect. We feel validated, normal, understood.

I also know that many of us don’t grieve well and so never reach this gift of solidarity or find out that grief can be the soil of healing and fresh possibilities.

So, I decided to try a new thing that isn’t common in churches here: hold a Loss and Lament service.

As a pastor, I am familiar with sitting with the bereaved, organizing memorials and leading funeral services. I had to do a few of my own on four occasions due to the sudden deaths of my loved ones. But this is going to be different. It will be an entire service dedicated to coming to God with our pains, burdens and silent screams.

As I shared with a few and began scripting, I realized that Loss and Lament are parallel rivers that share…