This book deals with Christian lament in the late Reformation by exploring the efforts of a talented yet little-known layman to cope with the death of his beloved wife. A work of haunting candor and searching faith, The Pious Meditations furnishes insight into life in the past as well as resources for life in the present.

A loving father explores with honesty and intensity all facets of his grief at the death of his 25-year-old son.

My husband died, my life collapsed.

This is a story of a Widow's journey from grief to life happiness. Lori, a wife, mother, career woman, politician, and independent thinker, found herself one day without her husband of 36 years, he was the love of her life. A transformation took place over the next 4 years, significant enough that her depression diminished and she was able to get off all medications that had been prescribed for many years. It wasn't easy. The children she loved could not accept the changed mother. Even as full grown adults, they were also grieving. Happiness comes in various forms...but ultimately, she found that she was happiest when she purposely moved her intentions into pure positiveness, doing the things she knew that felt right. She became healthier, happier, and significantly drawn into her resolve that if you take care of yourself first, then everything else is better. Find the joy and fun of being, and dont look back. Lori writes in her own words with frankness and honesty of her soul-searching journey through widowhood. When practicing the art of "letting go" her life dramatically changed towards different path - one of spirituality, mystical belief, freedom, and acknowledging that her path unfolded the way it's supposed to go, and nothing is ever wrong. This is a book for those who lost the love of their life. Many would find her feistiness uplifting and healing. This book is a thoughtful gift for anyone struggling with new widowhood, or in the need of finding a mid-life process for reimagining their own possibilities. Enjoy her view of widowhood from her transformation towards her journey of love. Enjoy her view of widowhood from the physical changes towards her journey of love.

Lament seems to have been universal in the ancient world. As such, it is an excellent touchstone for the comparative study of attitudes towards death and the afterlife, human relations to the divine, views of the cosmos, and the constitution of the fabric of society in different times and places. This collection of essays offers the first ever comparative approach to ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern traditions of lament. Beginning with the Sumerian and Hittite traditions, the volume moves on to examine Bronze Age iconographic representations of lamentation, Homeric lament, depictions of lament in Greek tragedy and parodic comedy, and finally lament in ancient Rome. The list of contributors includes such noted scholars as Richard Martin, Ian Rutherford, and Alison Keith. Lament comes at a time when the conclusions of the first wave of the study of lament-especially Greek lament-have received widespread acceptance, including the notions that lament is a female genre; that men risked feminization if they lamented; that there were efforts to control female lamentation; and that a lamenting woman was a powerful figure and a threat to the orderly functioning of the male public sphere. Lament revisits these issues by reexamining what kinds of functions the term lament can include, and by expanding the study of lament to other genres of literature, cultures, and periods in the ancient world. The studies included here reflect the variety of critical issues raised over the past 25 years, and as such, provide an overview of the history of critical thinking on the subject.

The laments of captive women found in extant Athenian tragedy constitute a fundamentally subversive aspect of Greek drama. In performances supported by and intended for the male citizens of Athens, the songs of the captive women at the Dionysia gave a voice to classes who otherwise would have been marginalized and silenced in Athenian society: women, foreigners, and the enslaved. The Captive Woman's Lament in Greek Tragedy addresses the possible meanings ancient audiences might have attached to these songs. Casey Dué challenges long-held assumptions about the opposition between Greeks and barbarians in Greek thought by suggesting that, in viewing the plight of the captive women, Athenian audiences extended pity to those least like themselves. Dué asserts that tragic playwrights often used the lament to create an empathetic link that blurred the line between Greek and barbarian. After a brief overview of the role of lamentation in both modern and classical traditions, Dué focuses on the dramatic portrayal of women captured in the Trojan War, tracing their portrayal through time from the Homeric epics to Euripides' Athenian stage. The author shows how these laments evolved in their significance with the growth of the Athenian Empire. She concludes that while the Athenian polis may have created a merciless empire outside the theater, inside the theater they found themselves confronted by the essential similarities between themselves and those they sought to conquer.

In the face of suffering, agony, and the brutal realities of life; in the midst of divine silence and human pain, the Lamentations poems speak of faith and trust in God. This sophisticated yet accessible commentary makes the message of Lamentations come alive. All who preach and teach will benefit from this rich resource. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching is a distinctive resource for those who interpret the Bible in the church. Planned and written specifically for teaching and preaching needs, this critically acclaimed biblical commentary is a major contribution to scholarship and ministry.