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“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Jesus of Nazareth (John 13.34, NIV)

“There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.“- Mother Teresa

This past Sunday morning I read a news article on the opioid epidemic, with the headline: Why Are Americans In So Much Pain? It noted that our nation makes up only 5% of the global population, but we consume over 30% of the global prescription of opioids.

It’s a fascinating article, but one comment that caught my eye was this: “In our society, pain has a negative connotation and can cause people to think that they cannot do things or cannot enjoy life. By accepting pain as a normal and common physical occurrence, we can have more realistic expectations for pain control.”

It got me reflecting on why we avoid pain, why we want to rid ourselves of pain so quickly, and why we equate pain with failure. It also caused me to do some difficult self-reflection on my attitudes and reactions to pain.

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat. The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved. “- Mother Teresa

The article on opioid addiction reminded me of an article I had read a few months ago on the loneliness epidemic in America, and how it deeply intersects with overdoses and death. It’s not just physical pains of old age or diseases we’re trying to numb, but the pain of being alone, the suffering that comes from fractured friendships, abuse and neglect.

“The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted. It’s to be nobody to anybody.” – Mother Teresa

Reading further about the deadly consequences of opioids, it turns out that there is a racial element to it – opioid drugs are mostly abused by white people, yet it leads to calls for treatment, not incarceration, while similar drug abuse by black people becomes a criminal offense.

What is a healthy response to the affliction of pain Americans feel in light of the majority of white people that are overdosing on prescription opioids, and the mass incarceration of nonviolent black drug offenders?

Obviously, it is multifaceted, including changes in public health policy and spending, workplace expectations and conditions, cultural attitudes towards drug abuse and treatment, and the inherent racism and white privilege in our society.

One spiritual response that has been most meaningful to me these days is that of lament.

The deadly intersection of opioids, lonliness, and racism stirs up a dark cloud of oppression. The more I see it and the effects it has on our nation, the more sorrowful and despairing I become.

The temptation is to deny what I see. I also feel a strong compulsion to do something about it. But what?

That is where the spiritual practice of lament comes into play. It’s the work of trying to see society as it really is, in it’s beauty and horror, it’s truth and lies, the justice and criminality, the love and the hatred.

As Pastor Daniel Hill writes in White Awake: An Honest Look at What it Means to Be White, “To be a white person in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of lament almost all the time” (158).

Instead of burying the pain of life, of loneliness, of injustice, or glossing over the abuse of opioids and other drugs, lament allows us to face it, name it, engage it – not alone, but within a community of hope, grace, and truth.

What many are learning is that the practice of lament is a healthy, yet difficult way forward. Hill shares that lament “…is a beautiful and needed resource because it has a unique way of remaining awake to sorrow without succumbing to it. Lament allows us to grieve injustice but not fall into despair. We can be awake to the pain of the world but still press forward in faith because of another beautiful word at the center of the gospel: hope” (158).

February is Black History Month. It’s an invitation to remember, reflect, and learn more about the lives of black people in America from black people in America. This is a timely season to learn from our black brothers and sisters on ways to face pain and poverty, to overcome loneliness and rejection, and deal with grief and death.

The list of books by black writers I’ve listed below are about Christianity, American culture, racism, theology, the church, society, horror, and hope. Most of these authors have been recommended to me by others, so I’d love to hear from you which black writers you are spending time reading.

These are books that I have read, started to read, or am in the middle of reading:

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – Strength to Love, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, A Testament Of Hope.

Ida B. Wells – Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All It’s Phases

Fredrick Douglass – My Bondage and My Freedom, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass

Bryan Stevenson – Just Mercy

Maya Angelou – Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

John Perkins – Making Neighborhoods Whole

Ibram Kendi – Stamped From the Beginning

Ta-Nehisi Coates – Between The World and Me

Eddie Glaude – Democracy in Black

Cornel West – Race Matters, Prophesy Deliverance! The Cornel West Reader

W. E. B. DuBois – The Souls of Black Folk

Alex Haley – Roots

Brian Bantum – The Death of Race

James Cone – God of the Oppressed

Reading is one way forward to get educated. Conversation with people of color is better. Listening is best. Honest, humble, courageous, patient, being still, absorbing the stories, connecting to the pain in others, and learning how together find a merciful way forward.