Words Are Not Enough

Patrick Vaughn, Pinnacle Associate

Sometimes words are inadequate.  They simply cannot convey the depth and power of human experience.

The birth of a child.

The delivery of a diagnosis.

The death of a spouse.

The end of a war.

Today is such a time.

How can words possibly capture:

The public murder of George Floyd?

Three months of pandemic disruption?

The lynching of Ahmaud Arbery?

The soaring rate of unemployment?

The economic devastation of untold fellow citizens?

A chief executive using a bible and a church as political props?

Any one of these is disturbing. But all of them coming together in such a short span of time?

It’s overwhelming.

Is your head spinning, too?

I know that many other pastors, communities, and journalists have written  remarkably eloquent essays, statements, and declarations. I have read many, and I appreciate them.

Sometimes, however, words are not enough. Sometimes we simply need to acknowledge our grief, sit with our pain, and explore our fear.

The theologian Henri Nowen once noted that we can not make another person whole. We cannot repair their brokenness. But, he added, we can go deep enough with them into their pain so that it might be shared. Then, when pain touches pain, we can discover healing together.

I wonder if this is such a time. I wonder if this perfect storm of social disruption might make it possible for hurt to touch hurt, fear to touch fear, and despair to touch despair.

When I saw our law enforcement this week employing teargas and rubber bullets to disperse a crowd of peaceful protesters, I felt fear. It was palpable. It was real. It was fear wrapped up in the safety of the protestors and the security of our democracy.

Was that an overreaction? Maybe. I don’t think so. Many others have shared similar experiences. 

But I keep wondering about that fear. Did I experience in some small measure what our African American brothers and sisters face day after day? Is this why a mother from a large metro area shared with me that whenever her son left their home she worried she might not see him again. She was well aware that the color of his skin might get him killed.

I want to say the right thing. I want to make a plan. I want to work for change.

But, wait a minute. Haven’t we been here before? With countless words and well constructed plans and passionate hopes for change? The terrain is so very familiar, painfully familiar.

Perhaps, then, now is  the time simply to acknowledge, sit, and explore. Together. Hurt touching hurt. Wound touching wound.

And sigh. Do not forget to sigh.

In Romans 8:26 Paul writes that the “Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know how to pray as we ought but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

Sigh deeply and listen closely for God’s spirit is blowing. This is the very Spirit of Jesus who welcomes the stranger and abides with the oppressed and comforts the grieving and heals relationships and builds community and sighs...ever so deeply...over the brokenness of the world.

Tomorrow we will talk. Tomorrow we will plan.

But today we listen for the sighs of God.

Because sometimes words are just not enough.