A Volley from the Canon, #35

A Wailing Wall

The character May in Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees has a “wailing wall.” She built it herself in the back yard out of stacked stones. She needs the wall because she is afflicted with a peculiar sensitivity to tragic events in other people’s lives. When she is overcome with emotion, she goes to her wall, and she writes her thoughts and her lamentations on scraps of paper, which she stuffs into the spaces between the rocks.

May’s wall is based on the Western Wall, in Jerusalem, all that remains of the Second Temple, where Jews and others similarly inscribe their prayers onto paper and insert them into the interstices of the Temple’s foundation stones. (I should go on record in stating that the Western Wall should not be called “The Wailing Wall,” because that label is a derogatory and ill-informed reference to the Jewish custom of chanting prayers while bobbing and swaying the body, in order to “pray with one’s whole being.” The Wall is used for any kind of prayer.)

But I think there is a lot of May in all of us. Sometimes, we need to wail. We are affected by the tragic events of our world, whether they impact us directly or not. We need to express our hopes, fears, horror, and sadness, as well as our joys, to compassionate divine ears. It can be helpful to send God a note, too, as a sign of our passing presence. Not many of us can travel to Jerusalem to do it, but a holy place closer to us would be helpful.

Maybe our churches need to provide such places. They could be outdoors, on grounds or in gardens, near columbaria, perhaps. They could also be sheltered, inside covered entrances, but accessible to the public. They should be blessed and set aside for the purpose. And they need to be known to the community as places where the prayers of ordinary children of God can be expressed and recorded. Perhaps the scraps of paper could be collected periodically and offered to God, with remembrances of those who wrote them, their pain and their need.

It isn’t always easy to go straight to an “inward and spiritual grace.” We Episcopalians know, better than most, how helpful an “outward and visible sign” can be in leading us there.