Lamenting Aleph to Taw

Lining up in alphabetical order was always a mixed bag for me. My last name is in the first third and my first is in the back third. I was never first or last for anything. If I was waiting for something good, I hoped it was by last name. On the other hand, if I was anxious about my turn, a first name sorting was much better.In years of youth ministry, I learned the value of alphabetical order. It gave me a quick way to put students in groups, line them up, or make sure I was accounting for everyone. I could always see in their eyes the same thoughts I had in their shoes.The Hebrews had another use for alphabetical order. They wrote poetry with it. They used it to give order to thoughts. The book of Lamentations is made up of five poems. All but the last using this order. It is like Jeremiah, in the midst of his pain and the chaos of people going into exile needed some kind of structure to help him frame what he was going through.Our English Bibles lose this effect, different alphabets will do that. Most offer the help of giving us the name of the letter before each paragraph. Right before the big 1, for example, you see the word, "Aleph". The first letter. The last paragraph of chapter 1 gives us, "Taw".There is something about structuring our emotions in art. One of the marks of historically great artists is the ability to express their feelings, thoughts, and ideas within the boundaries of rules. For Van Gogh, it was color and brush strokes. For Tolkein it was in the telling of a story. Mozart expressed it in music.Most of us may not possess the skill of men like these. But we all have our art. And we can all grow. Times like these are good ones for learning to process our feelings better. Maybe now is a good time to learn to journal, garden, wood-work, paint, play an instrument, write poetry or any of a thousand other things. You likely won't be good at it right away. It is highly unlikely that your work will become pieces of history. But that shouldn't be the point.The home we rent has a pond with a waterfall. It is silly steep because of the hill behind us. Before we lived here, most of the rocks had fallen down out of their place. I have made a few attempts to stack them over the past few years, but only half-heartedly. On Saturday I was feeling the isolation and confinement acutely and decided to work on those rocks for an hour.It is Tuesday and parts of my body are still sore. But the rocks now rise up the steepest portion of the fall. It looks and sounds beautiful. More than the finished product though, in the ordering of rocks, I found some order for my hurt. Unless people come to my back patio, few will appreciate my art. That's ok. It was the work that brought healing.What is it for you? What have you found that is helping you process this time? I would love to hear what you have found to be helpful. I think I'm going to keep working in the yard, and if I get that tamed before all is said and done, I'll be looking for new art projects to bring order and put my thoughts in their place from Aleph to Taw.