Responding to Haiti: Singing in Solidarity

The headlines have been as grim as the details: “Haiti waits in ruins for international aid,” “Bodies lining Haiti’s roadsides,” and worse.  But as we pray, watch, give toward relief efforts, and wonder how to else respond to this week’s tragedy (I daresay some of you are getting on planes and boats in hands-on response), one line in Wednesday night’s L.A. Times update caught my attention: “As darkness fell on Haiti’s capital tonight, crowds gathered in the streets…Their lives turned upside down by Tuesday’s devastating magnitude 7 earthquake, many survivors broke out into communal song…”

I don’t know what they were singing, but it’s striking to think about.  Earlier Wednesday I was at a memorial service here at Fuller for my colleague Ruth Vuong, our Dean of Students who tragically died last week.  At that service, in the midst of our grief and questioning, we did the same: together, we sang our lament.  We sang because it’s what we do when we gather to remember, feel, and express something beyond us—in this case lamenting the sting of death in our community.

So as we respond in tangible and intangible ways to our sisters and brothers in Haiti facing unspeakable loss, may we also join in their song with songs of our own that express the questions and pain alongside the hope for God’s presence and power.  As we sing in solidarity with the poor and devastated, may our God move us to deeper response.  Here’s one to start:

Out of the depths we cry to you, Lord;

Lord, hear our voices.

Let your ears be attentive to our cry for mercy.

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,

And in his word I put my hope.

Psalm 130:1-2, 5

©2010 Fuller Youth Institute