Reflections on the Psalms and the Great Psalmist,
One of my early blog posts discussed literary voice as a basis on which to establish the majority of psalms – particularly the “lamed-David” ones — as the work of a single poet. Although there is not universal agreement on that point, there is not much lively argument against it either. But a persistent, millennia-long debate continues to rage around the question of who that single poet is. [Read more…]
The personal story with which I concluded my June 7 post was intended in part to demonstrate the mind-heart concept embodied in the Hebrew word lev, as well as to illustrate the power of heart’s memory, in the context of a modern real world experience. I say in part because stories about the psalms, like the psalms themselves, cannot be reduced to a single message or point. So let’s look together at one other, namely practice.
Practice lies at the heart of the psalms’ power for David and for us. As is often the case in reference to spiritual things, a single word – in this case practice – is endowed with several nuances of meaning, and all of them deserve attention. [Read more…]
When we examined Psalm 34 a couple of weeks ago I noted that the Hebrew word lev is rendered in English sometimes as heart and other times as mind. To do justice to the original meaning in translation the English word would need to embody both heart and mind, just as the Hebrew does. The inability to do so points to something much more profound than a simple linguistic shortcoming. It relates instead to the fundamental understanding of the nature of man. To the ancient Hebrew, human beings were indivisibly body, heart, mind, soul and spirit. There simply was no separating one aspect from the others. Some who live in post-Enlightenment times might find that concept difficult. But it is important to recognize this Hebrew perspective, which David embraced and the Hebrew Bible assumes, before we go forward to the next paragraph. And the next paragraph is not so much about language as it is about experience and life, although words absolutely play an important part in it. [Read more…]
My May 25 post ended by suggesting we should regard the psalms as a worship (and prayer and praise) guide. So let’s return to Psalm 27 for direction. We looked briefly at that psalm in Knowing God by Heart as we examined the significance of David’s use of the name Lord when he addresses Him. We also considered some of the metaphors, each using the first person possessive pronoun – like my light — by which the psalmist describes the Lord and his relationship to Him. Then in The Sorrowing Heart we touched briefly on the question of when and how lament can be praise. [Read more…]
Insight and inspiration often come to me from the most unlikely sources and when I least expect them. Such was the case recently as I drove winding back roads of tidewater Virginia. The landscape is stunningly beautiful in an understated way, even as the vistas are quite predictable: stands of old trees frame fields of waving grasses, rolled bales of hay punctuate the harvested parcels like ellipses and prompt me to wonder what is missing or coming next. And then there are the many dozens of small churches that have stood along those roads for at least decades and more likely a century or two. [Read more…]
At dinner with a friend earlier in the week I surprised myself when I said that one of the challenges of growing older is adjusting to the increased frequency with which we encounter endings. Whether or not my observation is objectively true is open for debate. These facts are not: endings are inevitable, and we respond to them differently as we mature. Both endings themselves and our reaction to them are important in life generally and critically important in what we might term our spiritual lives or journeys. The great psalmist understood these things. [Read more…]
Last week’s post ended with my encouraging you to record the images, or metaphors, that David uses to describe his God. Good poets carefully choose their images to be more than what they are– that is, to transport the reader or listener beyond the “thing” itself to a deeper level of understanding. Poetic images generally call out to us to respond not only with our minds but also our senses – and when the images are in the psalms, we can add our hearts and our spirits – as well as with our own experiences to uncover their meaning. Yes, understanding poetry and the images on which it turns is, in part, experiential. Therein lies a conundrum. On whose experiences should we rely and on whose does and should meaning rest? [Read more…]
In my last post I promised we would turn attention to the psalms next. As we do so, we move away from examining what others, including God, have said about David to listening to what David has to say about himself– in relation to and in relationship with the Lord. The last point is important because that relationship is central to the vast majority of the psalms of David. [Read more…]
Last Saturday I spent the morning in a workshop on the ancient prayer tradition known as Lectio Divina. This centuries-old form of meditation has been engaged by Christians since at least the 4th century and it is actually much older than that. In fact the practice is rooted in the ancient Hebrew tradition of haggadah, with which Jews in Jesus’ time would have been familiar. Both Lectio and hagaddah center on studying the scriptures deliberately and interactively in what might be best described as a listening way. [Read more…]
After my last post several people commented that thinking of David as “a seer after God’s own sight” was a new concept. One noted that she loved learning that “beautiful eyes” can mean the way we see things, and that it would change the way she and others, she believed, viewed David.
When we examined the phrase “he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome,” that’s what we were doing — glimpsing how David’s kinsmen viewed him. But not everyone saw him that way. The enemies of Israel certainly did not. And when we look at their reactions to him, there is even more evidence of a strong scriptural connection between beautiful eyes and spiritual insight. [Read more…]
