I am devastated by the news coming out of Afghanistan, the wholesale abduction and rape of girls and women, forced illiteracy, poverty, slaughter, endless war. Today I lament. First in the words of scripture. Then mine adapted from a long ago sermon. Tomorrow I curse.
This is a wailing; and it shall be wailed.
The women of the world shall wail it.
Over Nubia [Afghanistan] and all the world’s nations shall they wail it,
says the SOVEREIGN God.
Ezekiel 32:16
Jeremiah 9:17 So says the SOVEREIGN of Warriors:
Reason within yourselves,
and call for the keening women to come;
send for the wise, skilled women to come;
18 let them quickly raise a wailing over us,
so that our eyes may run down with tears,
and our eyelids flow with water.
20 Hear, O women, the word of the HOLY ONE,
and let your ears receive the word of God’s mouth;
teach to your daughters a wailing,
and each woman her neighbor-woman a keening:
21 “Death has come up into our windows,
it has entered our palaces,
to cut off the children from the streets
and the young women and young men from the squares.”
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters…
Lamentations 3:51
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters of Afghanistan.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters of my world.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who are mothers.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who are wives.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who are sisters.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who are beaten.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who are raped.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who are illiterate.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who are unemployed.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who don’t have health care.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who are going hungry.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who are selling themselves.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who hate their own bodies.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who are dying of HIV/AIDS.
My eyes grieve continually for the lives of all the daughters who were killed by someone who should have loved them.
Julie Tai
August 24, 2021 2:47 pmDr. Gafney,
I am new fan of your works. I am reading your new commentary and your new lectionaries as I write this and crying. Thank you for your work. I am also a liturgist and songwriter and I started a new business with some friends called Kinship Commons. We are creating new works for worship that is made by and for people of color toward our flourishing. I read your prayer for Afghanistan and was wondering if I could create a worship practice around those words. I will make sure I credit you for your prayer and your poem and keep the integrity of what you wrote. I just want to create a chant around it.
Thank you again for all that you do, create, write, think, and imagine. I am filled to the brim by your wisdom.