My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?

You've all felt it. I'm sorry.

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani

Photo by wgbieber

It’s the question I get asked most often: 
If I had this planned all along, why cry out 
to my Father as if taken by surprise?

Being lost is not the problem. It’s knowing 
that someone lost you, back turned, 
shutting off the lights to make sure.

I want to feel what all the forsaken feel: 
the sex-trafficked preteen staring 
at the ceiling, imagining herself

as the invisible silk of a spiderweb, 
the veteran screaming at himself 
in an alley. Even the rich couple

hunched over martinis, phones scrolling 
in each other’s eyes, have plenty 
of despair to settle. I cry out

a question that really has no answer 
because it’s what you all cry out 
every hour. Why the pain, why

the loneliness, why the loss of even 
the smallest things, like hamsters 
stiffened in children’s cages?

Why crowns of thorns pressed 
into the temples of all 117 billion 
of you who’ve ever breathed?

Some of you would give everything 
for a dark night of the soul, 
for at least you would have one,

a self to mourn and love. I gave it all 
to be forsaken, and my Father let me 
bear it—even that flash of separation,

my arms stretched out, vinegar dripping 
from my lips—Come back, come back! 
It’s getting dark out here!—was enough.

                      —First appeared in The Christian Century, April 2025