Lament of a chaplain: bearing witness to suffering
Pleading, breaking, shaking, running, groaning, tremors, retching. The horrific crescendo.
Your reality is breaking, and you can not exist inside that space.
Retreating, becoming small for a moment, you become still, unnaturally.
Then the action begins again: tapping, pleading, twisting, groaning, contorted in grief, your body taking you back over the crest, then swallowing you whole.
I see you; I cannot reach you; you cannot reach for me. Your circumstances are so crushing, deafening; you are being swallowed.
All I can do is watch, be still, be present, and hope, just for a moment, that you see you are not alone. I am helpless to save you. I pray that a moment comes where the smallest glimmer of hope, of relief, finds you, embracing you. Not the stillness of death and surrender, but the stillness of calm and surety.
But when you are there, drowning, your only ability is to fight to survive and can not see.
Your body is screaming that you are drowning; we all see it. Yet the others watch, disinterested. Too uncomfortable with the pain, you have become “other.”
But you were never other; you are the deepest, most tender part of humanity, the manifestation of our brokenness born into physical reality. I hear your wails.
I’m still here, still watching, longing for you to be ok.
Your grief does not consume me, but I can see it is consuming you.
And I’m not afraid.
May my witness be enough. I’m here waiting for you. Hoping you find a way out, and praying you don’t drown in your storm.
I have to surrender to the helplessness too. I will carry you with me, and you will not be unknown, forgotten, or unheard.
I hear you, I see you, and in that, I honor you. May that be enough.
