Introduction
“You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
you will bring me up again.”
Psalm 71:20
“Out of the Depths” is a resource from the Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland reflecting on the consequences of violent conflict. The material offers an opportunity to consider the legacy of hurt, the need for healing and the challenge of forgiveness. Those who have lived through the “Troubles” in Ireland will be able to relate to many of the themes raised here. However, much of the content will also be of value when considering the long term effects of war and conflict, regardless of time and place. The resource provides a set of biblical reflections, helpful for the wider community and for those with a personal experience of hurt, which can be used for both private and shared reflection.
The material was originally prepared for the “Healing Through Remembering” Day of Private Reflection in June 2007. It is now offered, with some additional material for collective worship, for use in other contexts of personal and community remembering, including Remembrance Sunday, which is now established as part of the liturgy in many churches and in national life.
Early November has long been recognised in the life of the church as a season of remembering. The Christian festival of All Souls on 1st November, preceded by All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween) is traditionally the time in the Christian calendar for reflecting on the lives of all who have gone before us. Whatever other days become established in the community as a focus for collective remembering, it is appropriate to use this season to remember and reflect on the violence of our distant and immediate past and consider how the legacy of conflict affects the life of our community in the present.
In preparing this resource we have been keenly aware of the sensitivity of this theme for anyone with personal experience of emotional or physical hurt. For this reason we offer it tentatively, in the hope that it will be of benefit. If you find this resource meaningful in your situation we would love to hear how you have used it.
If you have any comments or questions, either about this material or ways in which we can further help you consider issues of dealing with the past, perhaps through our programme of “Difficult Conversations”, we would be glad to hear from you. You can contact the Centre for Contemporary Christianity by email at info@contemporarychristianity.org, by post at Third Floor, 21 Ormeau Avenue, Belfast, BT2 8HD or by phoning +44 (0)28 9032 5258.
Content
This resource provides short reflections on a difficult, even controversial, subject. They are offered with the recognition that they are neither complete in their scope nor the only legitimate perspective. However, we hope that these contributions provide some helpful insights for those struggling with a personal experience of hurt and will also benefit the general reader as, together, we wrestle with healing the mutually inflicted hurts which are the legacy of our violent conflict.
In this resource we invite you to think about:
Why Remembering is Important
Remembering and Revenge
Remembering and Forgiveness
The Wounded Healer
Human Despair and Christian Hope
We also invite you to engage with five psalms and to ‘read, reflect and respond’ out of your own experience:
Psalm 74 - Asking God to Remember
Psalm 94 - Waiting for the God of Revenge
Psalm 130 - Waiting for Forgiveness and Redemption
Psalm 51 - Through Suffering to Salvation
Psalm 30 - Thanksgiving and Deliverance from Despair
Praying the Psalms
The words of the Psalter are essentially not the voice of God addressing us – but rather the voice of our broken humanity crying out to God. In the Psalms we enter into the speech of a common humanity in all its love and hate, despair and hope, fear and joy.
The words given in the Psalms say things to God that are perhaps beyond what are perceived to be the “right” or “devotional” things to say – they give us language to express the hard, angry, questioning and despondent feelings that fill our hurting hearts. In this way the Psalms give shape and authority to our confusion and despair. In praying the words of the Psalms we allow ourselves, as God allows us, the space to voice the full range of raw human emotion. For, unlike much of contemporary liturgical material, the Psalms are not interested in the promotion of “successful living”. Rather, their spirituality is attentive to the disappointments and brokenness of life.
The Psalms therefore do not tend to provide easy answers to life’s struggles. Their inherent awkwardness gives us something better than ready-made solutions – that is the energy to journey in and through the contradictions of human relationships and to heal and transform ourselves and others.
These ancient texts provide poetic speech for rage and lament and therefore create space in the human heart and in the heart of hurt societies for the discovery of hope. For without the expression of anger and the articulation of grief there can be no newness and without words of grief we are numbed into silence. The language of the Psalms encompasses the best and worst of human experience.
These pointers invite you to engage with the text in a way that works for you.
Frameworks for Corporate Worship and Reflection
The material in this resource can be used in both personal and collective settings. Adapting it for corporate acts of worship and reflection will require some creative and sensitive work, however, we hope that some will undertake that task and will create unique liturgical material for your own particular context.
We have also provided some simple frameworks as a way of structuring a congregational response for use in different situations where the themes of remembering and forgiveness are being considered. These consist of two simple frameworks:
An Act of Collective Reflection - an exercise in looking at the past and an invitation to corporate prayer.
Act of Remembrance - a short liturgy suitable for use on Remembrance Sunday.
We hope that you find these materials useful.
Excerpts from the biblical text are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (Anglicised Version) of the Bible, unless stated otherwise.
