in defence of sad songs (2 1/2)

Posted by Paul | Filed under web sights

OK, if you’ve been around long enough to have read the start of this series of posts, then you probably thought it had finished. But, no… In fact, over the last few days I’ve been meaning to write to get round to writing some more. 

While I’m getting my thoughts together, here are two things I found recently on the subject: the first is a talk by artist Makoto Fujimura at the iTunes store; the second a post by Robin Parry on The Charismatic Curse of Happiness (please don’t be put off by the title…). Both these note our lack of resources for expressing lament. Fujimura mentions a comment from Calvin Seerveld to Michael Card after 9/11, ‘we don’t have songs to sing now, because we don’t know how to lament’. 
Parry says:

We do not know how to think theologically about sorrow, we do not know how to make space for it in communal worship, we lack the doxological vocabulary to bring the whole of our human experiences before God and so instead we simply bury them.
…
Do we lack the faith and courage of Old Testament saints to lament? To refuse to keep any dimension of our human experience from God but to come before him as we are – in our joy and our pain?

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Permalink | July 16th, 2008

One Response to “in defence of sad songs (2 1/2)”

  1. jonnyjpg Says:
    jonnyjpg July 21st, 2008 at 4:52 pm

    interesting…
    i think i’m going to take my theme of ‘Mission and Pain’ on to art at some point

    also: your much better at using iTunesU than me – i never find anything on it!

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