Exploration of Lament
We live in a fast paced, full on world. No time to stop and look around, no time to grieve, to lament. In fact the Psalms of lament barely seem to use recognisable language, contemporary culture seems to have driven us so far from a place of lament, with a constant striving for happiness.
We don’t live in a perfect world, we live in a world that is far from God’s perfect plan; yet we often fail to remove our rose-tinted lenses, seeing the evil that pervades our surroundings. Perhaps this is because it hurts, it is hard, and it involves us taking action, moving away fromour comfortable world of coffee shops with cinnamon lattes, cinemas with the latest chick flick, cold pressed juices and never ending consumerism. However, weare consumed with images and narratives of pain andsuffering that inject into our lives amongst the capitalistconsumer agendas around us. We see so many images of pain, suicide, loss, war..
The Psalms contain many lamentations, something we rarely see in our contemporary worship sets today. I wonder what can one learn from the setting in life that the Psalms may have taken at their time of writing.
It seems today the pendulum has swung from being able to express extreme pain, frustration, loss and lamentation in community with others, to almost ignoring the fact we go through pain. What is at stake for Christian faith when our liturgical life loses the capacity for lamenting?
Through lamenting in worshipthere is nothing out of bounds or inappropriate tobring to God. The whole of our lives become an open book.
This artwork explores the costly loss of lament. They are a series of drawings, mixed media and photograms on a large scale with the motifs of blacks, drips falling off the page and being bound up.
TANGLED THREADS
ECHOS
REFLECTION - OUT THE BOX
MARKED
SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY
THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION
Church as Culture Clash OR AMITY?
Considering the routes of the Western culture we live in, feeding off Christian values but with injustice cut right through the heart I am drawn to consider the above question.
Listening
Double Listening
Wishy Washy
Church's Response to Apartheid A VISUAL Lament
College Notes
