Lament connects people with those who suffer

 

Lament is universal.

In a world where minute by minute, we are continually and constantly aware of overwhelming global catastrophes and horrors, our bodies sometimes shut down.

Compassion fatigue settles in. It's too much. It's too hard. It's too painful. We've had huge challenges of our own to struggle through.

The devastation of the August 26 flash floods in Nepal staggers me out of my self-protective numbness. Entire villages buried in mud. Over 1,300 known dead, and over 5,000 people still missing. Each with a singular given name. Each with loved ones who mourn. My heartache supersedes my need to avoid involvement. What can I offer? They are living a nightmare. My day is fairly undisturbed.

I am a person of privilege. Safe, warm and with family members nearby, I am tempted to reassign the pain back to the people who are having to live it. Isn't it only their story to tell? I have no means to offer anything that could be of any help. It did not happen to anyone I know. I've not experienced their way of life, nor death. I can barely imagine a sliver of their suffering. They are in the jagged clutches of raw catastrophic and traumatic loss. Who am I to presume to step into their pain? My meager scream could never adequately reverberate into their massive wailing. What can I possibly do to make any difference in their avalanche of sorrow?

What can any of us possibly do? We do what we can to turn our shared mourning with the people of Nepal into action. Artists must create their own dirges, sing their own songs, paint their own pictures, dance their own dances and write their own poems.

As a dancer, I've spent almost 60 years dancing both the brutality and beauty of the human condition. Movement is my first language. This aging body has danced the resilient and determined reach of faith and hope. The celebrations of birth and buoyancy. It has also danced the shackled anguish of young girls' sex enslavement in Kenya. It has danced the confusion and betrayal of abused children and women of domestic violence, the uncertainties and fears of kiddos on the pediatric oncology floor, and the depression depths of patients within a medical psychiatric unit.

My muscles and my heart know empathy. Though I have no cultural nor familial connections to the desolation in Nepal, I can come alongside to connect with their anguish. I contort into rocking, doubled over, crumpled postures that crawl and cry out in pain.

I dance my solidarity of lament.

I dance their story within my own cultural movement vocabulary, because we share the connective tissue of being human and this planet is our shared home. I must believe my dancing heart of hurt for the people of Nepal will somehow flow into a global circulation of combined hearts, throbbing for the pain of each other.

Though our faith traditions may differ, I will pray for them in mine.

Though the people of Nepal will not see my dance,

I will lament through movement in my own home…for the loss of theirs.

I will writhe in my own body…for the writhing of theirs.

I will continue to weep my own tears… because of theirs.

A dear friend wrote this poem for the grieving women of Nepal. Based upon a probable situation, this poem grew from a prayerful heart, desiring to hurt alongside.

My Name is Eniya: A Lament

My mother named me Eniya.

My children call me Aama.

I am mother.

I am grandmother.

I am sister.

I am wife.

One morning, like all other mornings, I left my house early to till the soil in the field. My husband still slept. My son and daughter-in-law still slept. My granddaughter, too, slept. It was a morning like any other morning.

But I heard a great tumult, people crying out, so I set down my tools.

I saw all the waters of the earth rushing down the valley toward me.

Mud and water and rootless trees.

And it swept between me and my home

And it swept over my home and those who slept there.

And I could not reach them.

And they could not hear my voice from beneath the earth.

Oh, my husband. Oh, my daughters. Oh, my son.

Some mornings are not like other mornings.

Now I am a rootless tree torn from my mountain.

O, Maker of this mountain,

O, Maker of this tree, take this river of tears in your hands and drink.

Carry what I can no longer carry.

Hold what I can no longer hold.

Touch what I can no longer touch.

My name is Eniya. I am Aama.

I am my people and they are me.

Weep for me.

Judy Mandeville
Guest Commentary

 

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I just finished reading my copy of The Fig Tree. Often when I read any newsprint, I end up feeling depressed and discouraged. The Fig Tree never fails to comfort and inspire me.

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