The Psalms – Finally A Way To Enjoy Them

July 2024 Newsletter – Volume 24, No 7

Readers,
I’m going to get ‘religions’ on you for a moment or two. For some, that will be fine; for others, that can be an “Oh No!”  But stay with me – I think this can be useful across the board.

Boredom

Many years ago, during a difficult time, I decided it was time to read the entire Bible—cover to cover (which I’d never done before).¹  I remembered reading the Book of Psalms—a rather large chunk within the Old Testament—and being quite bored.

Yet the Psalms are often called ‘the Prayer Book of the Church.’ In monastic communities, the cyclical recital of the entire Psalter is their worship’s daily core, or bread and butter. Still, I could never conceive of reading them all each month as having much, if any, spiritual energy for me.

Then I found an analysis that in the original Hebrew, each verse has two parts (halves), one generally an echo of the meaning of the other. In our community prayer books, where the Psalms are recited aloud antiphonally (back and forth), this original pattern is generally honored, with the halves separated by an asterisk.  In the Sunday Liturgy, the Psalms are chosen to echo themes in the other lessons of the day. I could note with my inner ear the general echo of each half of each verse, but again, I wasn’t overly attached to them.

And then…

The Conversation of the Lovers

At a recent funeral of a friend whose wife had previously died, I was musing on the antiphonal rhythm of an appointed Psalm for the service,². All at once, I imagined Jack and Beverly united in Heaven, reading the Psalms and in their reunited marital happiness. I then named this rhythm “The Conversation of the Lovers.”

One would say something, then the other would fill out the meaning with different words, adding to the fullness of the complete thought. It was not so much the content of the conversation but the rhythm of it. That’s the way lovers talk.³ And that’s the mystery of how folks in my tradition can know to worship the Almighty.⁴

I can better understand the monastic language of “Praying the Psalms.”

A Second Previous Difficulty

I remember a while ago feeling that many Psalms give a lot of attention to matters of trouble and difficulty – and in a sermon, I once referred to this as a “Psalmic bitch session.” Then, we will be wrapped up with brief words, such as “God is in charge” – nothing more. Nothing! As if we don’t need to know anything more.

I’m not even sure how accurate this is anymore about the Psalms – but I will read through them all again with new eyes and ears.

This is what’s been happening to me lately.

One of my clients asked me, “Why, in my family, does nobody care whether I live or die ?”  – a painful truth to encounter.  In my younger years, I’d probably come up with something like, “Well, I’m not sure that’s true – surely some of them care….”  But in this case, his question is based on 99% fact – I know this family.  He insisted on asking again and again, “Why?” That question could lead to a ‘psychologizing’’ answer. I know ‘family systems thinking’ quite well. And I know how many times in his half a century he’s reached out to them and others for support and affirmation – and gotten virtually nothing. And it’s not his fault he’s the family scapegoat or black sheep.

I have no answer to his question that can comfort him. So I responded, “It’s as if nobody on the outside will care, at least long enough. Any care here was inevitably followed by rejection.”

All I could say was, “All you’ve got left is what’s deep inside you.” But even as he was growing up, nobody had affirmed any value in him.  But I also know it can be enough, even if that’s all you have. Even without answers.” (And he was always asking me questions.)⁵ It was all I could say to him – that inside him he was good, certainly good enough, and then silence.

Now, I understand why each Psalm ends with a brief, “but God is in charge” and then silence. As I mature, I can begin to know that and trust it—even though it can sometimes break my own heart.

And in that Psalmic silence, where no words exist, a great Love can be felt and known. That, for me, is the second great mystery of the Psalms.

Yes, it’s time for me to revisit the great mysteries of the Book of Psalms (and this time, not be bored).

Postscript.

I have given you two different (and, for me, new) ways to know and be fed by reading the Psalms. What they have in common is not necessarily their content, but their pattern or rhythm. Lovers can be uplifted in joy, and tortured souls can be freed. The God of Love is always in charge.

Pay Attention

Footnotes

¹  I chose the New Jerusalem Bible (1966), which I loved. It was (of course) a translation from the original languages, initially into French, with its delightful rhythmic qualities. Then, the English translation maintained much of that immediacy of the French – which, being an auditory person, was a delight to my ear.  And it was the Bible signed by my Bishop in 1970 at my ordination to the Episcopal Priesthood. Then, a new edition emerged in 1985 (The New Jerusalem Bible). So when I decided to read it all, that included the multitude of notes and introductions (My OCD was in full force!).

²  Psalm 33:1-11

³  It’s the rhythm of two becoming one, a third thing, which is greater than the sum of its original parts.

⁴  The ‘conversation’ of lovers and the divine worship of the Almighty have one thing in common – the Name of God is exclaimed. I sometimes tell my clients that the Name of God is spoken more often in bedrooms than churches. And I’m not referring to the Book of Psalms on nightstands.

⁵  This can be called “the dark night of the soul” – after the 16th-century mystic St. John of the Cross