The sweetness of our saddest songs
Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. Psalm 42:5-6A ESV It fast becoming cliché, rightly and well, to say that the Church has neglected the practice of lament particularly in her hymnody. No one likes to taste the bitter moments of life, but what is bitter to the tongue maybe found sweet in the stomach. Our tears may not be the favorite meal, but they do provide for us something that cannot be got in any other source of sustenance. The psalmist has found one of the good things in the bitter moments. For even as he is caught in the throws of inner confusions, and locked in battle against despair, and being tossed around in the waves of it all he is freed from the tyrannies of sensation. He may not feel the nearness of God, nor...