Thanksgiving and Balm
As I sit here, there is a rumbling thunderstorm outside, and plenty of rain. I am calm about it, because I am sheltered in the house, and it is a storm that will pass over and leave all intact. My dog Jimmy, however, is a mess. The thunder is just loud enough that it is traumatizing him. He is restless, pacing, panting, and wondering (in his dog way) “What will become of us?” He reacts out of his instinct, I, out of my information and history with rainstorms.
When the thunder quiets in the distance he will calm down. I will tell him, “I told you so.” and he will ignore me, not caring what that means. Had this been a powerful storm, I might be panicked along with Jimmy. We are familiar with things like high-force winds, flooding rain, power outages, triggered tornados, and storm surge. We have experience in preparing for big storms, and evacuation decisions. We know the menacing forces sent up from the tropics; we know, when “something wicked this way comes.”
Life’s storms are sometimes the literal ones, and when they are big enough, we are overwhelmed. Some storms are figurative and come through the threat of human conflict: the horror of battle, the danger of treachery. We learn in our literature classes that drama is built of conflict: the human being against nature, or other humans, or people sabotaging themselves. The protagonists in stories struggle for survival, against human conflict, the jungle, the villain, the natural disaster, or things eerie and surreal.
We are living big dramas in our lives today. We suffer from deep division about how to contend with disease, destructive storms and fires, and policy fights. These stressful battles do a number on us physically, psychologically, and spiritually.
One psalm in the line-up for our worship next Sunday points us to God. It is soothing,. Without dismissing the reality of human struggle, it comes from the heart of barely having survived battle. The one singing this psalm has come close to death. It is a song of thanksgiving to one surviving trauma, rescued by God and spared. Here it is:
1 I love the Lord, because he has heard
the voice of my supplication, *
because he has inclined his ear to me
whenever I called upon him.
2 The cords of death entangled me;
the grip of the grave took hold of me; *
I came to grief and sorrow.
3 Then I called upon the Name of the Lord: *
"O Lord, I pray you, save my life."
4 Gracious is the Lord and righteous; *
our God is full of compassion.
5 The Lord watches over the innocent; *
I was brought very low, and he helped me.
6 Turn again to your rest, O my soul, *
for the Lord has treated you well.
7 For you have rescued my life from death, *
my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.
8 I will walk in the presence of the Lord *
in the land of the living.
The threat revealed in verse two is named poetically not specifically, “the cords of death”, “the grip of the grave”. This helps us let these phrases represent the threats of our lives that entangle us, and that take hold of us. They are sometimes personal struggles. They are sometimes agonies suffered by parts of society or the whole population.
In most of the verses, the voice of this psalm addresses all who listen, fellow worshipers, we might say. There are two exceptions. In verse six the singer speaks to his or her own soul. “Turn again to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has treated you well.” Then in the next verse, as if addressing the One who resides within the soul, and everywhere else, this is spoken, “For you have rescued my life from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.” Praying these verses together, you asking that God return your being to God’s calm. We can imagine that the one giving thanks for survival will need that balm on into the unfolding months. Suffers learn the verity of post-traumatic stress.
We love the dig-up information about scripture, but these days, with this gorgeous psalm, may we just feel it, and mean it. Together, let’s become familiar with the deep thanksgiving and relief that come from having a relationship with the compassionate One who is both transcendently far off, and intimately near. It is that loving Deliverer that will help us find a way, come what may, to walk in the presence of the Spirit, “in the land of the living.”