LECTIO DIVINA...Psalms 42 & 43
These two psalms actually form one unit, with three stanzas each followed the refrain, Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?* and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;* for I will yet give thanks to him, who is the help of
My countenance, and my God.
This psalm may have a special resonance for anyone who served as an altar-boy in the years prior to the Second Vatican Council, when the “Preparation at the Foot of the Altar”, including Psalm 43, was recited between the Celebrant and the Server at the very beginning of every Mass. The Preparation (which also included the dual recitation of a Roman Catholic devotion called the Confiteor) was murmured in conspiratorial tones barely audible to any congregation that might (or might not) have been present, and it contributed to a sense of strangeness and secretiveness, as if there were mysteries unfolding that were dangerous for the uninitiated.
This sort of obscurantism is why the “Preparation” mini-ritual was removed from the Roman Rite (and by those Anglicans who had sought to imitate it), along with most of the other devotional addenda that had latched onto the liturgy over the centuries. But these rhythmic verses continue to evoke the memory of intimate worship held in side chapels on weekday mornings, witnessed only by a pious few and the whole company of heaven.
Psalm 42
V 1.
As the deer longs for the water-brooks, *
so longs my soul for you, O God.
It is significant that the psalmist chooses a deer as an image of spiritual longing for God. Deer are graceful, beautiful, and possess an almost totemic fascination for a person like me, a hunter since my youth, and one whose dreams are haunted by elusive herds of deer that clearly represent the deepest longings of my own soul. Yet, like any animal, their grace and beauty are diminished as thirst increases. This Psalm reflects the basic Judeo-Christian experience that any relationship with God is going to include times of anguish and bitter desolation. Whether it is St. Paul, Martin Luther, St. John of the Cross, there is a common awareness that proximity to God is risky, painful, and terrifying, and that longing for the experience of God’s presence can become as all-consuming as the need for water in a dry place. By the same token, communion with God is like a cold drink of pure water that restores gracefulness and hope.
But the Psalmist is not there yet…
Vv 2& 3.
My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God; * when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
My tears have been my food day and night,* while all day long they say to me, "Where now is your God?"
The commentaries point out that the Hebrew word translated as “to come before the presence of God” is a term used to describe the pilgrim’s passage through the doors of the Temple in Jerusalem. This Psalm is regarded as a lament uttered by exiles or prisoners of war, Jews prevented from making their accustomed pilgrimages and held captive at a distance from the sacred place of encounter with God.
The world today often seems this way: disenchanted; alienated; utilitarian; impersonal; indifferent. The natural thirst of animals has been replaced with an insatiable thirst for security, comfort, and convenience. This is not the longing of a deer for the water-brooks, but the thirst of a rich nation for more wealth, of a celebrity for more fame, and of an addict for more of whatever-it-is.
But who likes the the idea of “tears as daily (and nightly) food?” It is easier to dull the senses, focus upon the immediate and the superficial, and try to forget our longing. As one heroin-addict said to me years ago, “I’ve gotten to the point where I have to get high to feel normal.” In psychotherapy, emotional pain is often regarded as an early and positive sign of healing. As one therapist friend of mine says, “you can’t heal what you can’t feel.” Perhaps the closest some people can get to God is to experience the painful emptiness where the presence of God might fit. So mediocrity, depression, and cynicism are greater obstacles than suffering, desparation, and outrage.
It is a terrible experience to be mocked for one’s forlorn hopes. “Where is now your God?” is the taunt of the powerful, the succesful, and the smug, but it can also be an inner voice that taunts us, deriding any inclination toward naivite, vulnerability, or trust. This is a familiar voice to me: when vows are broken, trust betrayed, and old icons exposed as idols this voice can be heard within.
Of all the spiritual enemies, this one is the most potent, and most subtle. When a child suffers and dies as family, doctors, and priest watch helplessly, this voice repeats its litany of hopelessness: “Where now is your God?” There is a particular brand of cold-heartedness, emptiness, and helpless rage that can come to eclipse all else that lives within the heart. Over time, it shuts down all the emotions, stifles curiousity, and silences every song.
At such times the memory of past joyfulness can intensify the self-mockery. Psalm 42 speaks with particular force to an ordained person who is depressed or suffering through a time of spiritual darkness. “I didn’t just join in with the ‘voice of praise and thanksgiving’, I led the multitude into the house of God.” I was a role-model, a spiritual guide, a teacher. I was a star.
Vv 4 & 5.
I pour out my soul when I think on these things: * how I went with the multitude and led them into the house of God,
With the voice of praise and thanksgiving, * among those who keep holy-day.
So much for the narcissistic self-importance that afflicts most clergy to one degree or another. Exposing and acknowledging it can be healthy, but only if we can shed the heavy garments of victimhood and self-pity, only if we can acknowledge our vulnerability and woundedness and let humility and gratitude have a chance to emerge.
Vv 6 & 7
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God; * for I will yet give thanks to him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
Verse six could be a beginning-text for all psychotherapy. Why am I so unhappy? Why does everything seem so dull and meaningless? Why am I so restless and dissatisfied? Why am I so anxious?
By the same token, verse seven might provide inspiration for the provider of psychotherapy. I am not sure what Hebrew word has been translated “countenance” in the Book of Common Prayer, but it provides a rich image in English. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines the English word as having to do with “comportment, demeanour…appearance…the expression of a face… a sign, gesture… composure of face….” I Samuel 17:42 says that King David was, “…a youth, and ruddy, and of a faire countenance.”
In this way of speaking, a patient might come to a psychotherapist and complain: “my countenance hurts, Doc!” And the therapist might respond, “I can tell. We will have to repair your countenance from the inside out. But first, you must put your trust in the possibility of healing, in the the power of something greater than your present suffering.” In the Twelve Steps of AA it is stated thus: “we came to believe that only a power higher than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”
Or, as the Psalmist says, “put your trust in God… who is the help of my countenance, and my God.” For this ancient author, no façade of cheerfulness, no carefully crafted public image could substitute for the serene countenance of one who has been healed from the inside out. Such healing can only come from a ruthless honesty regarding oneself, and a willingness to venture deeply into the unexamined regions of memory and the unconscious.
Vv 8 & 9
My soul is heavy within me; * therefore I will remember you from the land of Jordan, and from the peak of Mizar among the heights of Hermon.
One deep calls to another in the noise of your cataracts; * all your rapids and floods have gone over me.
Here the psalmist wanders into a specific geography, citing certain landmarks as launchpads for memory. Are these places the site of the author’s captivity? One commentator suggests that the Hebrew translated in the BCP as “the land of Jordan” may be intended to invoke the notion of “the land of descent”, or the “nether-world,” called Sheol in the Hebrew scriptures. That such ideas were common in the ancient Near East is well-documented.
If the poet intends to lead us from the banks of Jordan into Sheol, the imagery in verse 9 would reinforce it, for it could be understood to refer to both the actual Jordan River, in its precipitous descent from the mountains to the Dead Sea, and to the subteranean land of the dead as expressed in Egyptian and other ancient mythology. For us, it can lead us into the nether-world of our own unconscious minds, where parents morph into gods and demons, and “one deep calls to another.” Here, if our souls are to recover from their spiritual obesity, the “flood” must be allowed to drown the old and broken self, overwealmed as it is with heaviness from the past. This surrender to a higher power, this seeming loss of control, can be terrifying, and it is typical for human beings to fight it with all the resources at their disposal: denial; intellectualizing; blaming others; faking recovery; substance abuse. But death will come, one way or another, and the drowned soul is carried away down the Jordan rapids toward the Dead Sea.
It would be difficult for a Christian to ignore the baptismal imagery in these lines. The baptismal font, after all, is a branch of the Jordan River, and a portal into the nether-world of Sheol. In the water of baptism “…we are buried with Christ in his death… share in his resurrection… [and are] reborn by the Holy Spirit.” Having risen with Christ from the water, the reborn soul is ready for verse 10 of the Psalm:
The LORD grants his loving-kindness in the daytime; * in the night season his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
In the season of darkness there is an unexpected moment of refreshment.
“I wake up to the sound of music,
Mother Mary comes to me,
Speaking words of wisdom:
Let it be.”
This respite is brief, but exactly what is needed in order for the soul to persevere in its pilgrimage. Newly baptized and gleeming with the oil of chistening, the neophyte gasps for breath on the river bank, only to be driven back into the water, back towards the gates of Sheol and the thunderous waterfalls.
What is this? I thought I had finished this phase of my treatment! I want to register a complaint!
vv. 11 & 12
I will say to the God of my strength, “why have you forgotten me? * and why do I go so heavily while the enemy oppresses me?"
While my bones are being broken,* my enemies mock me to my face;
Broken bones? This has gotten out of hand! I demand to be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention!
Szat so? Listen up…
Vv 13 -15
All day long they mock me * and say to me, "Where now is your God?"
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;* for I will yet give thanks to him, who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
This heaviness that seems so burdensome, it has not gone away, but it is changing in significance, just as what was merely bread becomes sacramental body, and what was a dead Jesus becomes a Risen Lord, so what was “heaviness of soul” becomes the “weight of glory.” As St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4:17: “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure.” The “heaviness” that has dragged the soul down towards nothingness has been transfigured into a “weightiness”, a profundity, a gravitas that serves like a vestment cast over the presence of God. This heaviness contains strong medicine for the fallen countenance. The drowning swimmer becomes a fish, at home in its environment and giving thanks to God with every joyful flash of its silver sides.
Psalm 43
Give judgment for me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people;
deliver me from the deceitful and the wicked.
For you are the God of my strength; why have you put me from you?
and why do I go so heavily while the enemy oppresses me?
Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me,
and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling;
That I may go to the altar of God, to the God of my joy and gladness;
and on the harp I will give thanks to you, O God my God.
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?
and why are you so disquieted within me?
Put your trust in God;
for I will yet give thanks to him who is the help of my countenance, and my God.
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