A Quest for a National Lament

by Helen Baily Cochrane

Often we only recognize the value of something when a special need for it arises. Having recently lost my husband to cancer, I am beginning to understand the strange meanderings of grief. This has led me to rediscover the Book of Lamentations in the Old Testament, or Hebrew scriptures.

According to the Interpreters’ Bible, Lamentations “was written not simply to memorialize the tragic destruction of Jerusalem, but to interpret the meaning of God’s rigorous treatment of His people to the end that they would learn the lessons of the past and retain their faith in God in the face of overwhelming disaster. Though it appears to have been spoken and written as a national dirge, it eventually became a way of expressing grief over the loss of a loved one. At some point in their (Hebrews’) history there developed the custom to designate certain women to be the official lamenters, and later the lament became part of the liturgy of the people to help them remember.”

The United States was founded by people who, though they had left persecution and poverty in Europe and suffered hunger and disease in their new homeland, they appear to have adopted a more stoic manner. The Psalms, of which 70% are laments, were read in their churches, but public wailing was not a common practice.

That European heritage has continued in most of our culture, and as a nation we have little interest in lamentation. Instead the more positive the speeches of our national leaders, the more we appear to like it. “Why look on the dark side?” could be our motto. Or move on. Get a life. Put your grief behind you.

There are times we are brought to our knees and feel the need for mourning as one people. That awful day of September 11, 2001, local officials and pastors gathered people together to lament for the nation and for so many lost lives.

Why aren’t we continuing that practice with the Iraq War? The administration even insisted that photographers not take pictures of the coffins returning from the war zone with the dead. Numbers killed and wounded are announced, although now mostly pushed off the front pages. Fortunately there are exceptions to avoidance. Every weekday evening on the 6:00 “News Hour with Jim Lehrer,” pictures and names of those killed in Iraq are shown in silence. A private lament but through television shared by many.

I would like to see President Bush declare a national day of mourning for those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Such a decree could go a long way toward dispelling the frequently expressed belief that there is a lack of compassion in this administration. But more important, it would remind us of the horrible loss and grief caused by war. We are in it together, like it or not.

If the President needs a model, he only need turn to Abraham Lincoln. A man who knew hardship and grief himself, he bore the mantle of leadership in the Civil War without shielding himself from his part in the suffering of so many. He believed he was right in challenging slavery, but grieved deeply over the losses of men as if his own sons. He also grieved for a divided nation. His deeply chiseled face reflected a courage and sadness forever etched in our history through his Gettysburg Address. Many that day mocked him, expecting him to give a long patriotic speech, but with brevity and simplicity, Lincoln shared his lament with them and now us over lives sacrificed, even though in the worthy cause of the Union and justice for everyone.

God knows we need a way to speak of the sorrow and sacrifices of war. If we don’t lament as a nation, if we avoid facing the truth of wars’ terrible costs, we will never work hard enough to bring about true peace.

Reprinted from the Morning Call, Allentown, PA, by permission of the author.

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