Lamentations and the Tears of the World

by O'Connor, Kathleen M.

• ISBN13: 9781570753992
• ISBN10: 1570753997
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-02-01
• Publisher: Orbis Books

Author Biography

Kathleen O'Connor is professor of Hebrew scriptures at Columbia Theological Union in Decatur, Georgia.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xi
Walter Brueggemann
Preface	xiii
Part I Commentary: Who Will Comfort You?
Poetry of Loss: A Defense	3	(14)
A Book of Comfort	3	(1)
A Work of Art	4	(2)
Occupation and Exile	6	(1)
Narrative Wreckage	7	(1)
The Marriae of Form and Content	8	(1)
Mixture of Literary Genres	9	(2)
Acrostic and Alphabetic Puzzles	11	(1)
Pain and Loss in Alphabetic Order	12	(1)
Relationships among Chapters	13	(1)
Multiple Testimonies	14	(1)
The City as Woman	14	(1)
The Missing Voice	15	(1)
Authorship	15	(1)
Places in the Canon and Titles	15	(1)
Musical Appropriations	16	(1)
There Is No One to Comfort You: Lamentations 1	17	(13)
The Narrator's View of Zion's Fall	18	(5)
Daughter Zion Pleads for God to See	23	(5)
A Topography of Pain	28	(2)
Your Suffering Is Vast as the Sea: Lamentations 2	30	(14)
Structure of the Poem	31	(1)
The Narrator as Participant in Zion's Reality	31	(4)
The Narrator's Conversion	35	(6)
The Narrator Pleads for Action	41	(3)
Mercies New Every Day: Lamentations 3	44	(14)
Changes in Poetic Structures	45	(1)
The First Complaint	46	(3)
Divine Mercies	49	(4)
The Strongman's Second Complaint	53	(4)
Inexplicable Hope	57	(1)
Beaten Down: Lamentations 4	58	(12)
Shrinking	58	(4)
Mercy Destroyed	62	(4)
The Community Remembers	66	(4)
Plea from an Occupied Land: Lamentations 5	70	(13)
A Shorter, Less Structured Poem	70	(1)
Pain without Compromise	71	(4)
Peril All Around	75	(4)
Unsettled Longing	79	(4)
Part II Reflections: A Theology of Witness
The Power of the Missing Voice	83	(13)
Many Views of Tragedy	83	(2)
Inspired Restraint	85	(1)
Denying Pain	86	(3)
The Family as School of Denial	89	(1)
Global Society and Hopelessness	90	(1)
Social Mechanisms of Denial	91	(1)
Denying Pain	92	(2)
Lamentations Denies Denial	94	(2)
Who Will Comfort You? A Theology of Witness	96	(14)
She Has No One to Comfort Her	97	(2)
The Narrator Sees	99	(2)
You Have to Come Close	101	(1)
Mirroring Pain	102	(1)
Poetry as Salvation	103	(1)
A Theology of Witness	104	(4)
Despair Work	108	(2)
The Abusing God	110	(14)
God's Character	111	(2)
The Dilemma	113	(2)
Lamentation's Portrait of God	115	(4)
Toward Another View	119	(2)
Enter the Conversation	121	(2)
Stammering toward the Unsayable	123	(1)
Prayer for the Wounded World	124	(13)
The Lament Form	124	(1)
Prayer as Truthfulness	125	(2)
Lamentations as Impassioned Hope	127	(1)
Lamentations as a Work of Justice	128	(4)
Prayers for the World	132	(1)
Lamentations and Liturgical Prayer	133	(2)
Daring Prayer	135	(2)
Epilogue: The Comforting God	137	(12)
A Spirituality of Wholeness	137	(1)
A Summons to Companionship	138	(1)
Theological Betweenness	139	(1)
A Biblical Response	139	(2)
Zion's Long Struggle	141	(4)
God Is Her Witness	145	(2)
Zion and the Suffering Servant	147	(2)
Bibliography	149