Saturday 17 December 2016

Weeping Woman - 3

Since working on this piece, I feel as if I should also make a weeping woman for Syria, for Yemen, for Iraq, or ..... India, Burma, North Korea and so on...
or even for mothers of children who never came home from school - gunned down in 'safer' countries.

I came across these words recorded by Jeremiah the Prophet and was amazed that this is the same type of weeping and wailing coming from women of these places of trauma and disaster here in our day.
“Consider now! Call for the wailing women to come;
send for the most skillful of them.
Let them come quickly and wail over us
till our eyes overflow with tears
and water streams from our eyelids.

The sound of wailing is heard from Zion:
‘How ruined we are!
How great is our shame!
We must leave our land
because our houses are in ruins.’”

Now, you women, hear the word of the LORD;
open your ears to the words of His mouth.
Teach your daughters how to wail;
teach one another a lament.


Death has climbed in through our windows
and has entered our fortresses;
it has removed the children from the streets
and the young men from the public squares.

Is it true that we are nearly in 2017 and houses are in ruins so that people must leave their lands? And is it true still that death climbs in through our windows, removing children from the streets and young men from public squares?

This is my Weeping Woman. The colour or place doesn't matter...
But why are we not weeping with her? That should matter!


***********
By the way, it took me around 2 hours to get all that statement down to the 300 allowed characters!

No comments: