Lament is a practice I regularly take up. It’s one of the most faithful practices of Christian hope. The petitioner offers her complaint to God (which is quite an intimate thing to do. What trust it takes to complain to God.) The petitioner then recounts the ways God has been faithful to remind himself that God, who is faithful, will be faithful again.

I, like many, have been lamenting today. I oscillate between scared, sad, angry, and disappointed in the election 2016 results. I know many others have also felt this, too.

I have found it hard to write today. Partially because my pastoral duties have led me to be praying with a scared and disappointed people. Partially because I feel a sense of quiet and like Romans 8: 26-27 says “likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.  And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

Prayer is what I know how to do.

My instinct was to pull out my Dietrich Bonhoeffer books and begin rereading his wisdom. What is The Way forward Brother Dietrich? I am reading his sermons and searching for guidance as we begin to think about the implications of this changing administration.

I know I refuse to give in to despair. I refuse to mock the dignity of someone who voted differently than me. I refuse to stop loving. We are the church, we are the lovers of ALL people.

Today, we pray. And for some of us, it means we lament.

Take good care of yourself today friends. We’ve got work to do in the upcoming months. The moral arch of the universe is going to need us to help bend it toward love and justice.