The Human Mess

AM Psalm 31 • PM Psalm 35
Gen. 11:27-12:8 • Heb. 7:1-17 • John 4:16-26

One of the timeless, universal things about the Psalms is the whole, colorful human mess it lays out in the sun to dry:

  • Despair, fear, paranoia, loathing

  • Pleading for rescue

  • God listening

  • God maybe not listening

  • Hoping for violence and shame against our enemies

  • Surrender to God

  • Release from our enemies

  • Conditional love for God

  • Hidden in the Presence of God

  • Gratitude

  • More pleading...

  • ...perhaps we add one or two of our own messes here.

The Psalms (and John’s story of the woman at the well) remind me that any emotional or repetitive thinking “place” we find ourselves—any confused, messy place—is a place to begin again. They remind me that God continuously creates our world. God hovers over our chaos, our void, our darkness—calling out light and life. Our honesty, spiritual desire, and surrender contribute to this process. Have none of these? Even that can be a place to begin.

“...three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
“In the hollow round of my skull.

...

Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert.

Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.”

From T. S. Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday”

Written by David Orth

Favorite Russian movie is Tarkovsky’s (mis-translated) “Stalker.”

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A Mysterious Fluency