WHERE IS GOD?

Where is God?

This question has plagued the humanity right from the very beginning of time. In these days of uncertainty, abuse, war, financial woes, and racial violence, we often do wonder where He is.

 No one has discerned the answer to this but perhaps there is a way to keep on believing and cling to our faith even when we cannot see.

I am thrilling to the signs of spring where I live.  Slow as it is, there is growth happening. The tips of the tulips have emerged, the trees look close to bursting, the rabbits are active again, and the drivers are a bit crazier (a sure sign of spring fever).

 Spring brings signs of new life and resurrection.  Those perennials in the garden that appear dead after the long winter, are sending tiny green shoots skyward. The birds are building nests and laying eggs. We can even watch the miracle of new life being born via live video cameras. Just do a google search in your area for a live bird cam.

 While all of these signs of life are surrounding us, so also are the reports of death and destruction.

 I am learning to hold these two realities at once.

 Obviously, the war in Ukraine, has us all thinking of this oft-forgotten country on the other side of the world. We have been inspired by a strong president leading his country to fight for their continued freedom. We have been moved by the sights of destruction and human suffering. This gets me to thinking about my extended family.

 My husband is of Ukrainian heritage and when I became part of the family over 35 years ago I was introduced to this beautiful culture and some of its traditions. My mother-in-law was the kind of woman who took very seriously the “feeding up” of her people.

 Holusti (cabbage rolls) and Pedeheh (perogies) entered my vocabulary and were welcomed by my taste buds.  Baba’s homemade dill pickles are the thing of legend amongst family members.

 I live in Alberta where the greatest concentration of Ukrainians in Canada reside. So virtually on the daily one encounters a symbol of these people. In one small rural town, as you enter off the highway, you are greeted with the world’s largest Pysanky. The art of these finely dyed Easter eggs have a unique and stunning beauty and are a symbol of life and new birth.

 One of my good friends would paint new eggs every year. She once attempted to teach me.  The process is involved and intricate and requires much patience and a steady hand. My only attempt was not very successful.

 The word pysanky is taken from the Ukrainian word “to write,” which hints at the method used. After designs are drawn in pencil around the raw egg, beeswax is applied across the lines with a tool called a kistka, and then the egg is dipped in the first dye. Just as in batik, the wax helps seal off the lines so that they remain free of the dye. More wax is added, and the egg is dipped in a different color, more wax, more dipping, over and over again until the desired design is complete. Once dry, the beeswax is melted off with a candle, revealing the colorful pattern. Pysanky are then varnished to preserve them. 

 The designs painted are not random, but have meaning and are derived from Slavic folk art. The designs reflected aspects of nature that were familiar to their everyday lives, like wheat, pine trees, leaves, the sun, deer and fish. Since becoming a Christian nation in 988, many of the symbols took on religious meaning and new ones added as an expression of faith. Here are some examples;  the pine trees symbolize eternal life, sieves with separating good from evil, doves are the Holy Spirit, the sun symbolizes life, the star a symbol of Christ’s birth and love.

The egg becomes the gospel in the hands of a talented maker.

I have three of these beautiful eggs, made by my dear friend who passed away in 2020. They are a treasure because they remind me of her, and the love etched into each one, but they are also a reminder of family, another culture, and county that at this moment needs the world to pay attention and to care.

At the same time as the war rages in various parts of the world, Afghani women are once again silenced and further oppressed, abuses continue to be unearthed in faith communities, and mass killings of innocent lives hit headlines again and again.

It is during these times when we can wonder where God is, does He not see or care?

And the age-old questions about His sovereignty and our free will come to the surface. These are the times I turn to the Psalms, not for answers, but for words to express my disappointment with God, the ways it seems the wicked are prospering on the backs of others, and what appears to be God’s absence when His presence is what we need most.

 One of the gifts of the Psalms are the laments contained within – right between the words of praise and worship.

Lament is necessary in the life of faith.

In our ways of accounting, the columns don’t line up and we want answers, we would like the universe to behave in ways we can understand. Lament helps us to acknowledge all that is not right, and then moves us to place our concerns back into the hands that can hold it all. This expression of our grief and questioning, rather than being a lack of faith, is an essential component of a faith which believes in a God who is big enough for all the questions and loving enough to see our hearts.

 As we learn to lean into lament, we begin by naming all those things we feel are not right - both the niggling discomfort that keeps us up at night and the huge injustices we see. Lament is not whining and complaining into a void, but rather, a cry to God – the One who has the power to act.

 We don’t like lament in our positivity-infused culture. We tend to move away from the thoughts of all that is broken because it is uncomfortable. We may be fearful of sinking into despair if we allow our thoughts and emotions to flow freely.  We may be tempted to give to a cause, to march, or post words of solidarity for the suffering which may be helpful, but may also keep us from feeling the weight of the world’s sorrow and injustices.

Lament provides a way for us to grapple with the hard, staying with it long enough for it to inform our hearts before we act.

 We hold the story of the resurrection, of life conquering death, the incoming of the Kingdom of God in one hand, while we hold all the everyday griefs, wars, injustice, and hunger in the other. We long to see resurrection in it all. We also know that before Easter Sunday there was Jesus experiencing brutality, oppression, and injustice on Friday. And in God’s plan there was a day between death and resurrection, a day of lament. A day of waiting in the unknowing while we plead with God to intervene.

 Lament is a way to release our hold on the disrepair of the world and offer it back to God to look after, knowing that He too feels the pain of it all. And at the same time lament, when allowed to do its work within us, we lead us to work toward justice however we can. This way of praying creates empathy within us that will always move us in the direction of the hurting.

 When we are not sure where to start when faced with all that is not right in this world, lament may provide the best pathway forward.