WE READ Psalms 42 and 43 Thursday morning. They are definitely among my personal Top Ten Hits when it comes to psalms.

“As the deer longs for the water-brooks, * so longs my soul for you, O God.” (Psalm 42:1)

These are pilgrimage-psalms, songs composed for and by Jewish travelers on their way to Jerusalem, a sacred equivalent, I suppose, to “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” sung on the bus by 4th Graders as they make their way on some hyper-secular field trip.

“My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God…”, sings the psalmist, yet goes on to complain, “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? * and why are you so disquieted within me?”

This Jerusalem pilgrimage is no field trip to Greenfield Village: this was a perilous exploration of the spiritual universe, a rock-climbing expedition to “the peak of Mizar among the heights of Hermon,” (Psalm 42:8), and a descent into the depths of oblivion, where “all your rapids and floods have gone over me.” (Psalm 42:9)

“My soul is heavy within me,” laments the pilgrim-author of this psalm, and we might well begin to resent the ponderous weightiness of these verses. But the Hebrew word for “heavy” is also the word for “glory” when applied to God. There is a density, a thickness that, paradoxically, enshrouds the thin places where we seem to be closest to God. The “thinner” the “place,” the “heavier” the “shroud”.

How’s that for a paradox? No wonder some people opt for “99 Bottles of Beer.” Yet I would not miss this ponderous pilgrimage for all the field-trips in the world.

“Put your trust in God;* for I will yet give thanks to the One who is the help of my countenance, and my God.” (Psalm 42:15)