A Carol of Lament
As a community striving to live in and through the love and grace of God, the Missional Wisdom Foundation is grieved and appalled at the continued gun violence in the United States of America especially violence directed toward children. As a response, we are making the A Journey of Doubt Incarnational Group Guide available for free for use in your community with the code: STANDWITHCHILDREN. We also suggest that you visit the following websites to take action:
Sandy Hook Promise (formed in response to the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012)
The following is an excerpt from “The Valley” from Into a Reluctant Sunrise by Andrea L. Lingle a memoir written after the still birth of her fourth child. It is presented here in honor of the sacred worth of children and the parents, guardians, teachers, and care givers that protect them.
The Coventry Carol is a song of lament both gentle and grotesque. The tune, The French Carol, is sad but soothing. Exactly what you would sing to your fretful child who was too tired to sleep. A child you knew would be dead in the morning. A child whom you could not save.
This story hit me like a train.
Herod said what? And the soldiers obeyed him?
There are just some moments in this long, broad swath of history that stand out like oil rigs in a bird sanctuary. Things so ludicrously terrible that there seems to be no way to explain them. If humans are indeed created beings endowed with the image of the Creator, how can you explain a man willing to murder babies to preserve his political power. Three camel riding dudes coming to worship a child scared him so much he ordered his great big adult soldiers to march out and kill babies. That right there is psychological guano.
Bat shit crazy.
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, Thou little tiny Child.
By, by, lully, lullay.
The Massacre of the Innocents is not part of the Christmas story that we tell our children around the tree on Christmas morning, and it has never been a part of any Christmas pageant I have ever seen. It is terrible.
I imagine there were not very many women living within sword point of Herod who put Mary on their Christmas card list. My guess is that they weren’t all that fascinated with the gifts the magi had brought. I am pretty sure they felt like the express to Egypt should have been standing room only. How could God leave our children to die while Jesus fled to Egypt? Where was my dream-warning? Was my baby too insignificant to save?
Was my baby too insignificant to save?
I love to think that the story of Advent is all about the coming of a great teacher of love and inclusivity and social justice, and it seems to be except for the part where some guy KILLS ALL THE BABIES!
O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.
I hate this story. It is all the worst of life rolled into one little, tiny excerpt. I want to yell and scream and protest that this is not the God that saves the adulteress from stoning or notices Zacchaeus in the tree. This is an Olympian God who promotes God’s agenda and if all the babies die . . . well, the hero escapes, so it’s ok.
I hear the voice of the Psalmist raging out, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”
WHY WAS MINE NOT SAVED?
Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young, to slay.
Now I, along with the sisters, too, understand how it feels to know that the sunrise will find me with a dead baby in my arms, feeling the weight of all those dark hours, and not knowing if I will ever be able move forward. How will I ever make sense of my “nights of weeping, my days of lament?”
This story, and many like it, aren’t told under the twinkling lights. In fact, our choir never performed the Coventry Carol that year. I don’t know why we didn’t; perhaps it was unutterably sad.
Unutterable, actually.
Probably we didn’t learn it fast enough for the Christmas concert and it had to be cut for practicality, but I always thought it must have been too sad to sing publically. It was a song to be learned and absorbed, but not sung. Not out loud.
Maybe it would have been too horrible for sixty kids to stand up and sing about wholesale murder with perfectly blended voices, but then again, it might not have been. It might have been a beautiful space for grief.
I have discovered that there is no griefatorium in our society. There are moments when I feel the grief roll in, like a wave off the ocean, and the tears start rolling down my face and my lungs start jumping. I am sure it isn’t a classy cry. There is usually snot involved. When I find a small corner to sit and unpack all these questions and beat my fists against the walls, I scramble to tidy it all away if I am discovered. I don’t want to be discovered.
Awkward.
Embarrassing.
Not Cool.
Our society is so uncomfortable with the wretched things in life it often refuses to even let them be wretched. Platitudes fly into the space of grief at a pace just faster than thought. Who cares if it’s true or not? Take it from a member of the club; it hurts.
But these platitudes keep difficult things off our own doorsteps. If that thing that happened to them is God’s plan, then it must mean that it was purposeful. Not random. Not going to happen to me. If good will come of it, and good might, then, in the long run, it is ok. Not meaningless. If you can bear it, it will make you stronger.
“All things work together for good,”
“God has a plan,”
“God will never give you more than you can bear,”
These words take something painful and place it firmly in the category of painful-but-therapeutic. Like the death of my baby is the emotional equivalent of push-ups. Please. Not yet. I need terrible things to be terrible for just a little while. Losing my baby is really, really awful, and I don’t need anyone to rush me through to healing. Not just yet.
Not helpful.
Not kind.
Not what I want to hear right now.
Those children died at Herod’s hand and hell came to earth and, although we all know now that Jesus would come bringing a new movement to the souls of men and women, he could have come just as powerfully without all the baby-blood. And God and can do good things in my life without baby-ashes.
Then woe is me, poor Child, for Thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For Thy parting, nor say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.