1 Boring Old Man

¹⁷_{The LORD hath done that which he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word that he had commanded in the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not pitied: and he hath caused thine enemy to rejoice over thee, he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries…}
¹⁹_{Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the LORD: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street.}
²⁰_{Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?}
²¹_{The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.}
²²_{Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORD’s anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.}

⁸_{Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee in the sight of the nations.}
⁹_{And I will do in thee that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any more the like, because of all thine abominations.}
¹⁰_{Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments in thee, and the whole remnant of thee will I scatter into all the winds.}
¹¹_{Wherefore, as I live, saith the Lord GOD; Surely, because thou hast defiled my sanctuary with all thy detestable things, and with all thine abominations, therefore will I also diminish thee; neither shall mine eye spare, neither will I have any pity.}
¹²_{A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them.}
¹³_{Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken it in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them.}

• Denial: the early period where the loss is denied.
• Depression: the painful, sad emptiness that comes when the loss "sinks in."
• Anger: anger at the loss – at the lost object for being gone, or anything else that’s handy.
• Working through: rebuilding a life in the absence of the lost loved one.

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2009 felt like a period of Lamentation to me – an angry lament. That’s neither what I expected nor what I wished for, it’s just how it has played out. Looking back on things, it makes perfect sense. But I didn’t see it coming. As much as we’ve ranted about it, I don’t think we still have any idea how much we lost in the last decade in every dimension. And that’s not just from the perspective of a Liberal. Everyone lost – Conservatives, Christians, all of us. We lost our position in the world, untold wealth, the lives of Americans, jobs, salaries, industry, human rights, every corner of our lives has a hole in it. There’s a part of Jeremiah in every one of us – praying for some relief.

And we’re mad as hell, almost all of us – Conservatives, Liberals, Indifferents. We don’t talk about it, but all of us are grieving over our losses – anger sitting just under the surface. The Conservatives rave that Obama is taking America away from us – and show nostalgic "Mean Joe Green" commercials. The Liberals rant that Bush and Cheney already took  everything away from us. But I expect that if most of us looked closely inside, we’d feel like the ancient Hebrew Prophets Jeremiah and Ezekeil, or the long-suffering Job, wondering what we did wrong, why we’re being punished. And 9/11 sits in the background of all of it.