Consider, O God, those pounding at the door for your justice, for your steadfast love, for your deliverance. Will you not answer? We are fainting on your front porch, weary with grief. Can you not spare a cup of mercy?
In your house is peace; will you not let us in? In your hands is life; will you not gather us to your breast? In your character is faithfulness; will you not deign to hear the groans of those who have known too much pain?
Once there was a void in which you created beauty. But when the mud of humanity exchanged its wonder for doubt, you cast them out to find their own way. See, we have returned to you! Will you refuse us?
Once there was a long day of captivity when your people cried under the harsh sun. But like a thief in the night, you crept in to steal what was priceless from those who loathed it. Now deprive again those who are evil!
Be the one our forebears have known you to be! Answer the door. Do not hide and turn out the lights. But if you will not consider us, then contend with your own spirit! Find within yourself the righteousness of which you boast!
Now our lips grow silent and our hearts lose their voice. We wait in the dust from which we are made and to which we shall return.
on Job 23 and Psalm 22
“We are fainting on your front porch, weary with grief…” Thank you for this, Rachel. Forsakenness is so primal, so eternal, so omnipresent and yet so seldom directly addressed. I love Hebrew scripture and its insistence on naming what others often turn away from, as if that will make it go away. The image of fainting on the front porch, weary with grief is iconic to me now. So close and yet so far. God on the other side of the door as we faint on the front porch. This taunting of God is very courageous and… faithful…. and patient… ending as the last sentence of this piece does, with, “We wait…”