Despair

Why Have You Forsaken Me?

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

and by night, but I find no rest.

Yet you are holy,

enthroned on the praises of Israel.

In you our fathers trusted;

they trusted, and you delivered them.

To you they cried and were rescued;

in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

But I am a worm and not a man,

scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me;

they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;  “He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

Psalms 22:1-8

From noon until three in the afternoon the whole earth was dark. At about three Jesus cried out with a loud shout, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” which means, “My God, my God, why have you left me?”
After hearing him, some standing there said, “He’s calling Elijah.” One of them ran over, took a sponge full of vinegar, and put it on a pole. He offered it to Jesus to drink. But the rest of them said, “Let’s see if Elijah will come and save him.”
Again Jesus cried out with a loud shout. Then he died.
Matthew 27:45-50

O Lord

I can’t, O Lord,

I just can’t 

Find the right words

To express this ache I feel,

This overwhelming “shit no”

That keeps rising up from inside,

A gut wrenching spasm

As bile rises but doesn’t come out.

I have no answers, Lord,

No answers

To all the questions 

Shouting incessantly inside me.

These overwhelming “why’s”

That echo in my emptiness

Demand answers.

Tell me why?

Why did it happen?

Who is to blame?

What did they do?

What could I have done?

I need to know answers

To stop this painful, aching spiral

That pulls at me, drags me

Into the dark loneliness inside myself.

All that’s left is the moaning.

Can you hear me now?

All images in this installation are copyrighted by Matthew Nelson 2021