Surround Me

One of my college theology professors taught that somewhere along the way we lost touch with lament as a prayer form.  Oh sure, we can complain and moan before God about how mistreated we may be from time to time.  Maybe we are having an altruistic day and can even complain about how others are mistreated.  But, how often do we raise our voice in lament, reading God the riot act?  We do have reason.  Consider what we hear in the news:  the treatment of immigrants and citizens like outsiders and slaves, children dying of violence on their own lawns, one's economic security vanishing with every ring of the closing bell.

Surround Me reclaims the biblical tradition of lament.  We are not sure of exactly what the singer needs rescuing from, but that allows each listener to make the words their own.  They are the words of each believer who finds themselves desperate, lost, and begging God for help.  Surround me is not a request for God's protection, it is a demand that God remain faithful to promises made and lamenting that the promises are not being kept.  Surround me now, don't let me run, I am on my knees!  (And from You, nothing but silence!)

The lyric hints pretty strongly that if God is not faithful, then the believer has no reason NOT to run away and leave God be. After all, is God not leaving them be? Today, we have moved so far from lament, the idea itself seems foreign, even irreligious.  Yet, the psalms are filled with pleas for help to an absent God, desperate reminders to God of past faithfulness, reminders that if God continues to be silent:  God is the one who is going to look unfaithful and uncaring.

Pain is real.  The anguished cry of a parent who has lost a child due to senseless violence.  The desperation of one who has labored hard for years but is losing their security and home.  The often silent scream of someone who finds themselves lost and adrift.  We can be too quick to turn to pious words of comfort that ignore real pain.  God has given word to be a God of justice, and to be faithful.  Yet, seas of injustice leave so many stranded, with no recourse but to demand that God do what God has promised to do. 

I believe in resurrection, and that God's silence only seems to be that.  But, I also wonder if we sometimes rush too quickly to resurrection.  Surround Me is a good reminder that we are in relationship with God, that we have a right (desperate need?) to demand that God be faithful.  Maybe the relationship cannot go forward and deepen unless we take lament to heart from time to time and demand that God do what God has promised to do.