Psalms of Lament and Imprecatory Psalms

This morning I came across a series of tweets by Diana Butler Bass, where she reminded us that imprecatory Psalms come from a different tradition, that Christians shouldn't appropriate them. She told pastors to stay in their lanes.

I thought, well, I have a seminary assignment that requires me to write in this vein.

Here is the assignment, which is a really cool way to help us understand this type of Psalm:

This assignment has 2 parts (Please post as ONE document):

1) Write your own lament, either individual or communal, following the structure of the lament psalm as discussed in the videos, assigned readings, and power points.

There is no specified length for your lament. 

2) In one paragraph, discuss why you would or would not preach from an angry lament in your ministry setting.

Due Sunday, March 20 by 11:59 p.m. No attachments please. Cut and paste a previously written Word document with both parts in it.

I've been thinking about the assignment for days, but I feel a bit of hesitancy.  My main hesitancy is that there are so many possible laments:  climate change (it's 70 degrees warmer than normal in Antarctica, an event which would have been declared as impossible, until it happened--see this story in The Washington Post), the pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, various refugee crises, so many of my friends moving away, and that's just the immediate list.

There are advantages to each one, and disadvantages too.  Part of me imagines that all of my classmates will be writing about Ukraine, so part of me wants to do something different.  But Putin is such an easy subject for a Psalm of lament--too easy?  And does climate change have an obvious enough villain?  Could my Psalm of lament ask for a planetary reset?  That's probably not a good idea for humans, depending on how far back we go. 

I have a bit of time before the due date, and this is the kind of writing assignment that won't take as much time as the writing assignment that asks for secondary sources--so I'm not panicked.  But it is time to make some choices.

As I move through seminary, my student mind is most engaged.  But there's always in the background my teacher mind and my writer mind.  My teacher mind evaluates assignments, and happily, so far, my teacher mind has been pleased and impressed.  My writer mind is always thinking, how could I recycle this work into other kinds of writing.  Some assignments don't lend themselves to much else, but this one has potential.

I started working on this assignment yesterday, and I decided on refugees and the Ukraine invasion as my subject.  Today I'll read the Psalms assigned for this week's class and assignment to make sure my writing follows the model.  I'll make a few revisions, and then I'll upload my response. 

I'll be very interested to get the feedback of my professors.  I often do better with my creative responses than with the assignments that require a more strict exegesis.