A Lament
God, you know me and you have been at this conversation for a while now. Just going back and forth, back and forth.
In regards to justice and mercy, sometimes it is really hard to know where you really stand. I know, I know what is written in the Holy Book, but to me honest, more often than not it seems you are either fence sitting or sitting pretty with the oppressors, the enslavers, the abusers, the capitalists, the unjust and the wicked.
Really, because from where I sit, my mind being limited and all, it is hard to picture you being with the oppressed. What with all the turmoil, the pain, the suffering they go through – for years, decades, centuries!- even unto death. And it would seem that you just sit and do nothing God.
That’s why I am asking you if you were me, would you trust you?
To be honest, even going by just the Written Scriptures, God you really have a bad record with the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, the needy – that entire group that Papa Howard Thurman called ‘those whose backs are against the wall’. Just look at Abel, go to Job, look at the 430 years of enslavement of the children of Israel, the death of the Hebrew boys, come to Lazarus dying, all the women and children that suffer disease, hunger and death. Your track record is right there and it is wanting. Come out of the written Word into history and it even gets worse. All the genocides, holocaust, enslavement of black people, displacement and murder of indigenous people, colonisation, capitalism!
You know sometimes I really wonder if you take convenient breaks while humanity destroys each other and the environment which supports us! Where are you when the poor are oppressed, crushed and killed.
Why, O Lord, do you stand far away?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?(Psalm 10:1)
Where are you God?
Where are you when we need you the most?
Why are you silent?
What are you silent when we could definitely use your voice?
Why do you not act?
Why do you not act when we could use your decisive actions?
I know oooh so well that me and You we are so different. You are God and I am Wanjiku. You are the creator and I am Your creation. Your thoughts, view of time, way of doing things is definitely quite different from mine. But I also know that you became man. Christ the Nazarene, you feel me I know. You know how limited in thought, time and space humans are. Having been here and gone through hell and back, quite literally, why don’t you act quickly? Why don’t you respond resoundingly?
The more I get to know you, I am really aware that you cannot be boxed as it were. You are not an either or. You are the entire spectrum of light and color splashed across the starry sky. You are earth. You are wind. You are water. You are fire. You are the elements in their fullness, in their vastness, in their breath, width and depth. Would you just please arise and show Yourself in all your fullness!
So there you have it God. I am here on the side of the oppressed, with my back against the wall. And I am asking you to choose a side, how audacious of me! Not just choose a side with words but in actions, you know. As you may have rightly guessed, of course, I want you to chose my side. And I also want you to act swiftly and quickly and bring reprieve to all of us whose backs are against the wall. But most important, would you bring us into what you are doing, what you are upto? Open our eyes, raise our senses to see what you see, perceive as you do? Like enjoin us into Yourself, Holy Trinity. Again I ask, Ooh circle of life holder of the past present and future, would you be quick to it.
Sincerely,
Wanjiku
