A Place for Lament

There is a place

for celebration.

You feel it

when the doors open.

Music already rising,

hands lifted,

voices gathering strength together

like fire running

through dry grass.

People arrive

shaking rain

from their coats,

umbrellas stacked

in the corner,

latecomers slipping quietly

along the rows,

someone laughing

too loudly

near the doors.

The room fills

with the confidence

of people

who know

how the story ends.

God reigns.

All will be well.

The songs move easily

in that direction,

upward,

certain,

resolving.

There is a place

for this.

Sally stands

halfway

down the aisle,

still learning

how silence behaves

in rooms

that have grown darker

since the house

was emptied.

She came

on the Central line,

two stops past the park

where she used to walk

on winter afternoons

with her parents,

a busker playing

something slow

in the tunnel.

The house

was cleared

in January.

When the furniture went

two pale shapes remained

in the carpet

where their armchairs

had faced each other

for thirty years,

as though

a conversation

had simply paused.

In the foyer

someone embraces her

warmly

and says

they are in

a better place now.

The kindness

is real,

still the sentence

lands awkwardly,

like a hymn

sung slightly

out of tune.

Steve sits

near the wall

where he can see

the exits.

When the drums begin

his shoulders tighten

before he can stop them,

certain sounds

moving quickly

through the body,

memory arriving

before explanation.

He keeps time

with the music anyway,

a quiet tapping

of his thumb

against his palm.

After the service

a man prays

with him kindly

and speaks

of victory.

Steve thanks him

and means it.

Yet later,

crossing the bridge

toward the station,

watching the Thames

slide under

the traffic,

he notices

his hands

are trembling again,

cold wind

off the water.

Barbara arrives early

and leaves quickly.

Her nephew’s room

remains untouched,

a jacket

over the chair,

a mug

still on the desk,

one sock

half under

the bed.

The quiet order

of an ordinary afternoon

that did not know

it was the last.

Someone touches

her arm

during coffee

and tells her

that time heals.

Barbara nods.

But standing

on the platform

afterwards,

as the District line

rattles

through the station

and disappears

into the tunnel darkness,

she wonders

whether grief

like this

means faith

is supposed

to be stronger

than she is.

A few rows away

sits Daniel.

He studies maps

more often now,

coastlines thinning

on satellite images,

summer heat records

broken again

before the last ones

are forgotten.

Sometimes the future

presses against

the present

like weather

gathering

in the dark.

Still he sings

with everyone else.

Yet certain lines

catch

in his throat,

the ones

about the earth

rejoicing.

Week after week

the songs rise

confidently,

every chorus

climbing upward,

every ending

finding the light.

Praise comes easily

to people

who know

how to speak

the language

of arrival.

But the psalms

remember

another language,

older,

rougher,

learned in exile

and long nights.

One Sunday

the service

slows.

Before the sermon

the minister

says simply,

we will read

a psalm.

No music follows,

only a voice

from the lectern

reading words

older than

the city itself.

O Lord,

the God

who saves me,

day and night

I cry out

to you.

Something shifts.

Sally stops folding

the order of service,

Steve lifts

his head,

Barbara leans forward

slightly,

Daniel listens

as though

a window

has opened.

Why, Lord,

do you hide

your face?

The words move slowly

through the sanctuary

like rain tapping

against

the high windows.

They do not hurry

toward resolution.

Darkness

is my closest friend.

The reader closes

the Bible.

No explanation

follows.

The church sits quietly

for a moment,

several hundred people

held in a silence

that feels both unfamiliar

and strangely faithful.

Across the aisle

Sally wipes

her eyes,

Steve’s breathing

settles,

Barbara sits

very still,

Daniel looks down

at his hands.

Outside,

a number 38 bus

hisses past

the kerb,

rain gathering

in the gutter.

And in the ancient psalm

the prayer

remains unfinished,

still rising

from the dark

toward the God

who listens.

– Rev’d Jon Swales