A few weeks ago, I began teaching a Wednesday night Bible study at our church on the book of Lamentations. In the introduction and overview lesson, I tried to make the point that Lamentations captures poetically the grief and sorrow experienced by the people of Jerusalem during and after the fall of their city. I mentioned that 2 Kings 25 and Jeremiah 52 capture the bare facts (in prose), while Lamentations captures the raw emotions (in poetry). And I reminded our congregation that poetry has the ability to capture emotions much better than does prose.
Then, a few days ago, one of our church members sent me a link to an interview he heard on NPR with an exiled Iraqi poet who had to flee her homeland because of war. This interview, and her poetry, illustrates well what I was trying to communicate about Lamentations. In particular, I appreciated her comment that "poetry is not medicine - it's an X-ray. It helps you see the wound and understand it." That's exactly what the poetry of Lamentations does - it provides an X-ray of the grief and sorrow of God's people due to the destruction of Jerusalem.
So, when you read through Lamentations, keep that quote in mind.
Remember that the poetry of that book is meant to provide you with an
X-ray of the emotional wounds suffered by God's people.
To read the NPR interview with Iraqi-American poet, Dunya Mikhail (and to read some of her poetry), click here.
