People's Stories

Oct 2013, LAMENTATIONS 1:1-11 Creative Project: People's Stories

I.          INTRODUCTION

Lamentations 1:1-11 is a portion of poem that laments over the fall of the city of Jerusalem, over the destructed temple buildings and the cessation of its associated spiritual activities, the disintegrated national and social systems with the loss of the Judaic king, and the disrupted daily living because families are broken and separated. It is also a poem laments over the pains, sufferings and humiliation of the remnants in Jerusalem over the defeat, the loss and the exile of the royal family, the priesthood as well as the common people.

I have penned these pictures into four short and simple narrative stories in prose, captivating and demonstrating the imagined physical destructions and those individuals who had suffered under the great distresses and troubles caused by the invasion of the Babylonians, as well as the negative feelings stirred by their enemies who delight and rejoice over their misfortunes. The stories begin with the overall contrasted scenes of the city before and after the invasion of Babylonians, followed by the lament of a widow, the journey of deportation encountered by a young man as well as the king of Judah, and the repentance of a priest.

In my own perception and understanding, story is the most effective way to tell about what have actually happened, leaving the readers an impression of the real conditions with more detailed descriptions of individuals and their related environments presented through the story lines. These stories are like the movie scenes, displaying to the readers the multifaceted emotions and experiences encountered by the people after the ruins of Jerusalem.

If we read Lamentations with some imaginations, having the figures of the book personified in the real life situations, and see them as individuals rather than mere wordings and emotional expressions, the reading will be more interesting and impactful. And this is the very reason I have come up with this creative project by telling stories.

II.        THE PEOPLE’S STORIES IN LAMENTATIONS

1.         A TALE OF THE TWO CITIES

A man is holding the book of Lamentations, reading during the summer heat in his study room. It seems like many things have happened in this city called Jerusalem. As his eyes scroll down the lines, he discovers that he has actually entered into a cinema. Yes! A cinema and a free show giving away to all the comers on today.  With a sense of excitement and curiosity he enters and settles himself on a seat.

There the movie starts. But to his surprises, there are two screens instead of one he usually has come across. The screens are displaying two backgrounds with two story lines. He is busy switching his eyes between the two screens trying his very best to capture the contents and meanings.

The screen on the left is about a city crowded with people. The market is bustled with people buying and selling, and is flooded with street cries. Then comes a caravan, passing through the city gate and riding on the street, heading towards the direction of a big, glamorous, sumptuous and splendour building that looks like a palace.

The caravan carries with it many jewelleries, gold, silvers and produces. The people who are bargaining stop their conversations, and they line up automatically at both sides of the street, and their eyes are tailing after the movement of the caravan. From their whispers, he learns that these are vassals who come from afar to pay their tributes to the great king of Judah. He can literally tell that the people are proud about this occurrence as their facial expression discloses their hearts.

The screen on his right is depicting a desolated and dirty city. The city walls are crumbled, with some grasses sprouting here and there on top of the rubbles. A woman is dressed with her plain clothes, torn, sitting there quietly. Her face is pale and her eyes are filled with loneliness and void. Her eyes search aimlessly as if she is waiting for someone or something to arrive or appear. He can tell that she symbolizes a widow.

A caravan passes her by with tons and tons of local produces and goods deposited in it. Foreign armed soldiers are dragging along some locals who look like prisoners of the war. The later are chained and they walk dispiritedly without even lifting their heads. The widow observes these emotionlessly. Similar scenes are posted repeatedly and it seems that these are the daily encounters frequented by the locals. The evening sun is going down and the city is deadly quiet, resembles to the transfixed widow who sits still under the setting sun.

The man is puzzled at first, and wonders what has happened and how the two cities are related. But eventually he finds some clues. He spots some similarities between these two cities. These are actually not two discrepant cities but a city under two scenarios. He sees the same street, the same city gate, and the same face of the widow. Yet the appearances in these two screens are strikingly contrasted, with one being flourished and prospered and the other deserted and depressed. It is as though the city has blossomed through the spring and withered away in the autumn. With awe and bewilderment, the man gives his sorrowful cry “alas!”    

The laments of this city start with a widow sitting quietly near the city gate, narrating the destruction of a once glorious city of God. When the eyes of the Lord depart His favoured ones, the city is dumped like a widow, grieving over the demise of her beloved husband. It is a reflection for us when we encounter a broken relationship with God. Joy flees and sorrow creeps in as if we are spiritually widowed.

2.         THE TEARS OF A WIDOW

The widow sits still. Day by day she has been wailing near the city gate, until she is exhausted physically and mentally and cries no more. Usually there are some passers-by who   will stop and gaze at her for a while, but she pays them no attention as her heart is troubled deeply. At night, she will be there also. In the silence of the nights, her solitary soul is awakened by those painful memories, as she recalls the moment of the departures of her beloved husband and son.

Vividly she still can remember how her husband was killed and collapsed with blood sprinkled around and how her son was forcefully taken away by the Babylonian soldiers. The moaning and groaning of her dying husband and the screaming of her child, coupled by her yelling are sombrely piercing through the thick darkness and the sky.

Her house has been burnt down in a fire set by the Babylonians. She is uncertain who could have been the culprit since the number of people rushing into her house is overwhelming. But she captures the look in the eyes of the soldier who has pierced her husband with a spear. His eyes are so cruel and violent, as if there are some unresolved deep hatred existed between him and her husband. She huddles with her son hiding in a corner, and she covers his mouth to prevent him from shouting aloud seeing the death of his father. But they are discovered somehow, and the son is taken alive before her very eyes.

She chases after her son and the soldier who has taken him away. A cavalry stops her, grasping hold of her clothes and tore apart violently. She is astonished and she faints. When she wakes up, it is as though the city is swept over by a hurricane and is emptied. Rubbish is everywhere and the street is full with leaves flying around in the air. What an isolation she feels she is in! Her legs are swollen and she tries her best to stand up, bearing the great pains in her body. When she looks to the place where her house is located, she is shocked to find that it is turned into ashes! Dust! Ashes! And a half-naked widow starts wailing on the street!

She has lost her husband, and has no idea where her son could have been taken to. She tries to look for friends in the neighbourhood. But they refuse to take her in. They see her as someone unwanted, deserted, dirtied and an extra burden in their difficult moments. She is rejected again and again, by those she considers as good friends to share life with.

Since then, with her dishevelled hair and clothes she resides herself near the city gate, sitting alone on top of the rubbles. She is without hope. Her house is burnt, her family is disintegrated, and she finds nowhere even to get her basic food. She wonders in her heart. How long! How long can she survive? How long she will be willing to live on as such?

Judah is the troubled widow, who is humiliated by her enemies, and further rejected by her alliances. She has lost her providence, and is deprived of all her happiness and social rights. She is alone, without help, without pity, without hope and without destiny.

3.         THE DISPERSED SONS OF JUDAH

  

It is such a tragedy for him, to see before his very eyes the fall of his father.

Before he departs from the city of Jerusalem, he manages to have a last glance on his homeland. He witnesses the burning flame consuming his own house. When he is roused by the fact that his mother could have remained in the house, he turns instinctively trying to run back to his house. But his movement is constrained by the chain put on him, and he hurts himself while he tries to break away from the chain. A soldier approaches him, lashes on his back giving him a warning, and he is almost blackout because of the severe pains imposed by the lashes. So he staggers, with blood exuding over his hands, feet and body, towards a place unknown.

The cavalcade stops near a countryside. The soldiers eat their food and he is given a loaf of bread to feed his emptied stomach. They throw the bread to him, and it falls on the ground. He takes it up and eats the dirtied bread, as though it is the best food in the world. While he is eating, he hears someone groaning. He looks around and sees a blinded man. His eyes are still bleeding. Like a trapped and wounded animal, the man is roaring in pains.

Yet there is something special about this man. He is different from others, not because of his blindness, but because of the royal robe he wears. The soldiers are there giggling, and he can literally hear them calling the man in Aramaic language, the King of Judah! He opens his eyes widely, amazed. This man is none other than Hezekiah, my king! Now he discovers that he is deported alongside with King Hezekiah. No, he is no more the King. He is now a prisoner, a captive as poor and as lowly as any of his common people of Judah.

He cannot recount how many days they have travelled, until a huge and magnificent building appears in his sight. This is the city of Babylon! The huge entrance with fortified gates has attracted his whole attention. He has never seen such a monumental scale of buildings in Judah. Never in his lifetime in Judah has he ever been exposed to such architectural design though he is always proud of the temple and the palace in Jerusalem! How sad it is for Hezekiah! For he cannot see with his own eyes the majestic and grandeur of the Babylonian city!

Upon arriving at the city of Babylon, Hezekiah is taken away from their midst. Since then he never sees his Judahite king. He goes through a few rounds of interrogations and they allocate him with a group of people from Judah. Some he knows by face but most he does not recognize. He is a well-educated young man and is thus retained in the city of Babylon while some of the people are taken to other places for hard labour.

For the first night officially settles himself in the foreign land of Babylon, he is insomnia. He paces back and forth under the starry sky missing his homeland. It is like a nightmare, which he wakes up to discover himself uprooted and displaced. Like a dandelion, he cannot help but is directed by a wind of disaster. Babylon would never be his homeland but he guesses this will be the place where he is going to spend his entire life.  

Right there, under the starry sky, as though going into a trance, he hears the laments of the people of Jerusalem and the exiles in Babylon, swarming from all sides singing and mourning over the fall of their nation.   

4.         THE SHOFAR BLOWN IN ZION

            He stands before the destroyed temple with tears welling up in his eyes.

There have been about more than four months since the city is overtaken and the destructions have happened. During these four months, he climbs up to Mount Moriah as frequent as he used to be when he was carrying out his priesthood duty. He will then stare down half way to the peak, and overwhelmed by a sense of loss and despair seeing the ruins of the palace.

Both the temple and the palace are burnt after the siege, with Babylonian soldiers running mad and cheering to put all the big buildings in the city on fire. One cannot but keep on bewailing to see the wreckages of the palace, the debris of the city and the spoiled temple. There is always an unbearable smell of dead floating in the air.

The scene goes back to the day the city is conquered. He is in the midst of performing his priesthood duty and in a rush and fear he runs out of the temple upon hearing the outburst of great cries over the entire city. When he hurries down the staircases, he sees pillars of fire everywhere in the site of the king’s palace. The fire has consumed their pride as a nation and as a priesthood of God.

This morning, he gets up early to buy his breakfast. He has to queue up for long hours before he can get some buns for the family. The price is extremely high and every time he pays for the food, it is as though the wounds in his mind and heart are worsened. After buying the buns, he walks near to the city gate, and there he stuffs a bun into the dirty hand of the widow. She looks at him with a plain and emotionless facial expression. He wonders if she is in her right mind, just as he is questioning his own soundness. She is there day and night sitting near the city gate, while he is a regular visitor of a ruined temple.

In an unexplained manner, he is drawn compassionately towards the widow. He used to be so indifferent towards his surroundings, and would not even spend time greeting people on his way to his duty. But the city is almost vacant after the ruins and meeting someone now mean a big business to him.

After the destruction of the temple, he is literally jobless. Without wearing the priesthood robe, he has lost his sense of identity. Many are tending the vineyards for the Babylonian government, but he just cannot flow naturally with the current trend. He is embarrassed to know that he cannot even hold a hoe properly, not to mention to help out the harvest of the fruits. He is also without any business knowledge and experience for him to enter a trade. How will be his livelihood going to be supported for long term is a good question for him and the family to ponder, yet he knows no appropriate answer.

He knows that today is the Trumpet Day, a day which used to be one of the busiest in his working schedule. He used to murmur with the heavy workloads given to him. But now he is too slack to be alive. His wife has been nagging him. She suffers from disorder after the traumatic experience of the war, and has been pestering him days and nights, fearing without proper and solid reasons. Therefore he will prefer to be alone here, facing the ruins, and recalling all the past good memories in his priesthood days.

The weather on the mountain has somehow become cooler and the mountains are still resting soundly in the mist. He takes out his shofar, and with all his strength he blows a long blast, airing towards the Mount Zion. The sound seems to hit those cliffs, and he hears voices resounding and echoing in his ears, like those fears, angers, disappointments, sorrow, sadness, pains and suffering roars of the people bursting out in the city of Jerusalem.

Then all is silent. He falls on his knees and weeps uncontrollably and bitterly. For the very first time, he comes to realize that, though he has been a priest standing before the altar day and night, he has never ever been so mournful and so sorrowful lamenting over his own sins and the sins of his forefather and his nation.      

III.       THE END

The man closes the book. The end is nothing but sadness and pains. There is no solution offered for the city as a whole, as well as the widow, the exiled young man, the king and the priest. They are facing their tomorrow without a proper answer, without a rightful hope, and without a sure destination. With his depressed spirit, he exclaims another “alas!” and leaves his study room with the book laid quietly there under the summer heat.