Vino Veritas

Vino veritas.
It’s an old adage that means ‘in wine there is truth’, or at least in a few glasses of wine there is a kind of truth.  It may not be with a capital T, but certainly with wine you might be more inclined to get it off your chest, speak what is on your mind, and reveal what is in your heart at that moment. 

Out of 150 psalms, there are about 50 known as lament psalms, sometimes called complaint psalms.  I think of them as the bitching and complaining psalms, and maybe we could also think of them as the wine psalms as they say things that we wouldn’t normally say or hear or think -at least not out loud or on social media (there are filters on pictures for a reason!).

When you ask these 50 psalms how they are doing, they flout the too much information rule and let it all out:
Oh I cry all day but God does not answer;
The waters have come up to my neck I sink deep in the mire 
I am weary with my crying;
my throat is parched; 
my eyes grow dim waiting for my God;
every night I flood my bed with tears;
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
Like a lion my enemies seek to devour me
My friends cross the street when they see me.  (Psalm 22)

Sorry you asked? Well, if they are not telling you how much they are hurting, they may be telling you how much they are hating:

Oh I hate the wicked, Lord, 
I won’t even sit with them,
Lord, let their children become orphans let their wives become widows;

Eesh.  How do you really feel?
I remember once leaving a worship service at a Benedictine monastery, walking behind two of the monks who had just finished chanting one of these lament psalms.  One said to the other: 
‘How I dislike those violent psalms, they are so difficult to live with.’
‘Yes’, said the other, ‘and so are people.’
 
Some may say we whine too much as a society, always complaining and fussing- cry babies, snowflakes, etc.  Yet, for all the talking that we can do, for all the airing of laundry that can go on, for all the venting and raging—truth be told, we are not always that good at telling the truth about how we are doing.  How do we absorb the reality of 100,000 deaths due to Covid-19?  Higher unemployment than the Great Depression?  And though not on the same scale but closer to our context, imagine planning a funeral where no one could come or a worship service where singing together could spread contagion.  What to do with all of this? 

What if we wept?  Cursed? What if we fell face first into the earth?  Before we argued, debated, planned, cheered up, pivoted, prepped, ignored, denied or pressed on- what if we as people, church and a nation mourned for all that has been lost?  Did I miss a national or world day of mourning for all who have died in this pandemic? 

Of course to speak something in God’s presence is to risk being transformed by God’s presence. In the talking and sharing and venting and later in the listening and waiting, the space that is emptied by lamenting could possibly be filled. The wound could be healed. The page could be turned.   Notice how many lament psalms find space for thanksgiving:
5 But I trusted in your steadfast love;
   my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
   because he has dealt bountifully with me. (Psalm 13)

Lament doesn’t get in the way of hope or healing. It provides the way to hope and healing.

 Lord, in your mercy.