Psalms of Lament from a Pasture
“My neighbors are putting their horse down today so you may want to amend your walk accordingly,” the text read. I had just parked my car. My spiritual director knows how I enjoy the walk down her long driveway, past her neighbor’s house and barn during my Quiet Day. She was trying to protect me from what I’d already seen when I drove down the road, a large paint lying on its side with three people squatting over it.
I’m not a horsewoman, as evidenced by the damaged SI joint I’ve had for fifteen years when I once thought that wearing a cowboy hat and cute boots and staying at a dude ranch for four days meant I could canter like my daughter. It did not. There’s no such thing as ‘dressing for success’ and no substitute for saddle time when it comes to handling those majestic creatures.
I spent several years hanging around a barn while my daughter learned to ride. I know my way around shampooing and brushing a tail on a white pony for a show, but mostly I was an observer to the horse world. I loved watching the herd, smelling the hay, sweet feed, and manure, and watching the girls interact with the ponies, mares and geldings. During that time, I learned how important pasture mates were. For riders who didn’t board their pony like we did, they often had another horse, or even a goat, at home to keep their horses company in the pasture.
Even though I knew that what would follow the scene I encountered driving in, I took my walk anyway. Along with the smell of the pasture and the manure was the scent of fresh earth and the hum of the backhoe as he began his work of making a final resting place for the paint. Out in the middle of the pasture stood a bay. He was fretful. He neighed. He stomped his feet. He neighed more deeply. I felt myself stirred; my heart hurt for him. I prayed for the horse. Is that silly I asked myself, but I been moved by his cries. God made it this way was my next thought. He made this animal to know companionship and to recognize the absence of life. And He made me this way - stirred with compassion for the grieving horse.
His owner walked to him, nuzzled him, and told him it would be OK; but on my return leg of my walk his neighing had only gotten deeper and more guttural. He was not done.
I began to think about animal grief, how without language, they still express emotion, how that horse would not be consoled until he had spent whatever he needed to on this confusion and loss. Animals don’t have ways to hide or numb their pain; they lack the words to say, “I’m fine” when they are really not. Perhaps they have the advantage. They cannot lie. Where many words are (particularly, “I’m fine!”), sin abounds.
One anguished horse in one pasture on one morning in Auburn, Alabama, tells the truth. Mourning is necessary. All of this beautiful universe is interwoven so much more than we let ourselves realize. The last two posts I’ve written about change and loss, moving from our home of twenty-one years and losing a beloved dog. Since then, my husband’s aunt passed away and a life-long friend received a difficult diagnosis. These things take place against a backdrop of collective grief around the globe as Covid-19 has brought loss upon loss.
If we paused with the horse to grieve our losses, we’d be much better off. Fr. Richard Rohr says, “If we don’t transform our pain, we will most certainly transmit it.” Every pain is not for public display nor is everyone a safe presence with whom to grieve, but we all need to allow our souls the space they need and the accompaniment of a loving presence with whom we can stomp and neigh deeply until we are done.
The Israelites knew something about the power of lament. Around 40% of the Psalms are lament psalms, poetry written intentionally for the purpose of spending grief, crying out to God, asking him the hard questions and wrestling with the whys until we get to a place of rest. Take a look at Psalms 6, 10, 22, 38, 42-43, 77, and 130 just to list a few. Lament is a spiritual practice and we need it. It honors the gifts we have received and the goodness and justice we know is possible. Lament reminds us we are not alone. It places our grief in the hands of the only One who can do anything about it.
Go ahead. Follow the psalmist’s lead. God can take it. If his horses have permission to cry out in their grief, so do we.
