the psalms of david

Save me, O God,
for the waters have come up to my neck.
I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters;
the floods engulf me.
I am worn out calling for help;
my throat is parched.
My eyes fail,
looking for my God.
[69:1-3]


I’ve been spending some time in the Psalms lately. David’s songs are potent, earthy, and raw; the words heavy-laden with anger and fear and sin and confession and blood and tears on the one hand, and ecstatic, elated with praise and joy and dancing on the other.

In his darker moments, I can imagine David on his hands and knees, digging up earth with his fingernails, chest heaving with sobs that threaten to make his sternum collapse, thick threads of spittle hanging from his mouth; he grips and tears at his hair; he presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, he scratches at his face. His throat becomes raw, his lips gummy. His cries come from a depth he cannot plumb and are swallowed by the emptiness around him.

For troubles without number surround me;
my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
They are more than the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails within me.
[40:12]

We all know the story of the boy-turned-king, the warrior, the one God had hand-picked. We know the story of how he slew the giant with a rock and sling; we are familiar with his dalliance with Bathsheba. We’ve read of his enemies and how madly they pursued him, thirsty for blood.

Too often I’ve lost the heart of the man in the stories I’ve heard a hundred times; the flesh and blood human being is reduced to a caricature, a mere stick-figure. Familiarity turns those words ripped from his chest and dripping with his tears and blood into dead things, dry and stale, scattered on the wind like dust. But seasoned with my own tears, I find his songs new and fresh with a kind of life. David’s songs give me permission to be desolate, weary, tired, and questioning. Even the man after God’s own heart found himself wading in mire, his heart failing. He found himself overtaken and drowning, shackled to his sins and failures, weighted with grief. There were times he couldn’t see God at all.

Yet from this same heart, he was also able to say:

I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.
Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
[145:1-2]

While the depths of his grief might seem to contrast sharply with his ecstatic exclamations of joy and praise, both were poured out of the same heart. David permitted himself to experience fully both bottomless despair and ecstatic, effusive rejoicing. He did not hide any of it from God or attempt to sanctify his experience, but allowed the truth of his heart gush forth whether it came out of a chest that was ready to cave in, or from one that felt weightless and winged.

And I find myself wondering if I can do the same: not simply to trust in his presence and goodness when my eyes are red and puffy, when my blood boils underneath my skin, when I’m clawing at the earth with my fingernails, but also to explode in praise, to commend His goodness when I feel as though I'm being crushed.

I do not know whether we need to experience the infinity of grief in order to know its counterpart in joy, but I do know this: David’s heart held the breadth of it and did not seek to contain it, this heart that was said to be like God’s own.

And that is truth I can grab onto.

quietness & rest

There are other souls who labour and weary themselves to a piteous extent, and yet go backward, seeking profit in that which is not profitable, but is rather a hindrance; and there are still others who, by remaining at rest and in quietness, continue to make great progress.

St John of the Cross ~ The Ascent of Mount Carmel

blossoms photo by kirsten.michelle

point vierge: being before doing

From this weekend's sermon:
The biblical call of what we do is always superseded by the challenge of who we are.

Other notes:
Be like Jesus.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. [Psalm 103:8]

Unless the Lord builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
In vain you rise early and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat--
for he grants sleep to those he loves.
[Psalm 127:1-2]

Maybe that's why I feel as though not much is going on. There's not a whole lot of doing as I find myself in the midst of my own point vierge, waiting in a place that is the cusp between sleeping and waking, between darkness and light. It is a threshold, a doorway between who I was and who God has designed me to be.

Doing is not the point. Perhaps right now, obedience means sitting still. Waiting.

And so I will sit and wait, hands open: surrendering the old, ready to receive the new.

darkness & dawn photo by kirsten.michelle

compassion. laughter. holiness.

Recently, both His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa Desmond Tutu were in Seattle for Seeds of Compassion, a 5-day event centering on working toward cross-cultural communication and addressing differences through collaborative problem-solving.

"All of us have this gift," said Tutu, facing the Dalai Lama. "We see here an incarnation of goodness. How can you be 50 years into exile and still maintain this bubbly joyousness?"

The message they brought with them to Seattle runs deep. Words like compassion and communication and understanding and collaboration are not just words with them. I think their lives and their friendship prove that.

There's something inspiring in their message and in their playful friendship. One man has been in exile for over fifty years. The other dealt first hand with the reality and the aftermath of apartheid. Neither has been dealt an easy hand.

And I guess what has me thinking on this and posting this here is that I think there's plenty I can learn from that. Though from very divergent spiritual beliefs, there is something potent and powerful about witnessing true respect for the dignity and humanity of another, about enduring hardship with joy, and about loving across political, cultural, and religious divides.

It's humbling. And it sounds like Jesus.

For a short (and funny) video clip of the two in action, click here. For a good article, click here.

Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu: AP Photo

meeting him here

surrender

mount hermon cross photo by kirsten.michelle

penetrating layers of memory

Perhaps I shouldn't be, but I'm continually surprised at how God is leading me down this new path: the things He points out, the places at which He has me pause and look and take in the landscape before me, the detail He points out, the stones He turns over. I'm closely examining places I've become accustomed to overlooking, finding myself drawn to examine memories of myself that were on dusty shelves of forgetting: memories that at first glance, have no apparent connection to what drove me to this path in the first place.

I'm studying memories of myself that I haven't thought of since I passed through them. I find myself curious in my remembering: not quite afraid, often tenatively comprehending the view. Making notes of what I observe there.

I'm surprised at what reveals itself when pen passes over paper, at the truth once buried so deeply in my consciousness coming so easily to the surface now. One memory leads to another, and to one before that. And so the layers of memory peel back like an onion, revealing the truth beneath. I hand each layer to God, sometimes tentatively, sometimes with eyes squeezed tight and face turned away. But each time His hand comes to my face, and I open my eyes. He gaze locks with mine and peers deeply into to the heart I am still coming to know. There is no reason to be afraid. There is no shame. Just grace and understanding. Love. And so I open my hands and hand these things over to His care.

Really? You want this? You can redeem even this?

I can trust Him with these things.

I can trust Him to lead to the next layer and the next, knowing that only He understands what needs to be uncovered and recovered, acknowledged and surrendered.

As I'm drawn deeper, I wonder what I'll find when the next layer peels away, and where all of this might lead: this journey deeper into knowing myself, this pulling off the white sheets that have been covering and hiding these spaces in my heart.

One day, it will be important for me to share what these things are with you; I know this. I can trust you with these things, too. But for now this path is sacred, the time for revelations still in the realm of not yet.

journal photo by kirsten.michelle

Mysteries

photos by kirsten.michelle