An Eliot Society Partner Feature

published 11/14/2025

In this 2016 lecture, artist Margaret Adams Parker explores the human need to lament and reveals how various “arts of lament” console, strengthen, bear witness to those who engage with them. Without giving ourselves time and a way to lament over grief and suffering, we are diminished, Parker says. She takes Psalm 22 as a biblical model of lament and discusses various art works that open our eyes and hearts to the things — both public and private — that we must lament. She also looks at art that makes the same “turn” as the psalmist does, a turn from a litany of sorrows to hope, even when circumstances remain unchanged. While she acknowledges that lament is not a “magic solution that erases sorrows,” Parker gives witness to its power for all people; this consolation, she says, is a gift from God for believers and unbelievers alike.

This lecture is provided courtesy of the Eliot Society.

51 minutes

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