Life in the Psalms: Contemporary Meaning in Ancient Texts: The Mowbray Lent Book 2016

By Patrick Woodhouse

The Mowbray Lent Book for 2016.

The Psalms lie at the heart of Jewish and Christian worship. For thousands of years people in despair and praise have cried to God through the words of these ancient poems. Fragments of them are still widely known and loved, but such is the gulf between their ancient culture and our contemporary world that much of the depth of their meaning is lost to us.

Life in the Psalms aims to bridge that gulf, enabling the modern reader to find hope in these ancient texts by re-imagining their meanings for our times. The Psalms include texts that illuminate issues including climate change and environmental degradation; the illusions of consumerism and 'celebrity culture'; our response to migrants and asylum seekers; conditions of depression, anxiety, and grief, and the question of 'attention' in a digital age. Many texts take us deeply into the experience of meditation and contemplation; and teach us how to wonder, and find happiness.

Three introductory chapters are followed by reflections on thirty Psalms (one for each weekday of Lent), which aim to illuminate the text and help those in search of a more contemplative spirituality to discover, in the midst of the hard realities of a secular twenty-first century world, a deep consciousness of the healing mystery of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Dec 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781472923158

Patrick Woodhouse

Patrick Woodhouse is a writer and Anglican priest. He was for thirteen years a Canon of Wells Cathedral. He has also been a parish priest, and a social responsibility adviser in two Anglican dioceses. He is the author of Etty Hillesum, a Life Transformed (Bloomsbury Continuum 2009). He lives in Somerset.

Book preview

Life in the Psalms

Contemporary Meaning in Ancient Texts

Patrick Woodhouse

Contents

Introduction

1 Why the Psalms?

2 What are the Psalms?

3 Praying the Psalms

First Week Pilgrimage

Psalm 122 The peace of Jerusalem

Psalm 84 Journeying towards integrity

Psalm 133 Oil running down

Psalm 42 Deep calls to deep

Psalm 43 What is true?

Second Week Prayer

Psalm 63 Come and see

Psalm 123 Mercy within mercy within mercy

Psalm 131 Like a weaned child

Psalm 1 A tree planted by the waterside

Psalm 4 My heart, their corn and wine and oil

Third Week Wonder

Psalm 8 Infants and stars

Psalm 104 Wonder and protest

Psalm 19 A theatre of glory

Psalm 139 The uttermost parts of the sea

Psalm 103 Forget not

Fourth Week The Way

Psalm 119.1–8 The path of happiness

Psalm 119.9–16 Mind change

Psalm 119.129–36 Passion and compassion

Psalm 23 Lacking nothing

Psalm 27 In a secret place

Fifth Week Hope

Psalm 71 Hoping continually

Psalm 46 Be still and know

Psalm 36 The well of life

Psalm 121 From where is my help to come?

Psalm 62 Tottering and leaning

Holy Week Suffering

Psalm 91 Trampling the serpent

Psalm 13 How long, O Lord?

Psalm 137 By the waters of Babylon

Psalm 130 Out of the depths

Psalm 22 The image of the crucified

Notes

Acknowledgements

Introduction

As a Canon at Wells Cathedral for thirteen years, I became very familiar with the Psalms. Each evening in the quire of the Cathedral they were sung as part of cathedral evensong. Each morning, in the silence and contemplative space of the Lady Chapel we recited them as part of our morning prayer. And yet, however familiar many of the phrases of these poems became, always they remained to me strange, even elusive. I could never escape the sense that these revered and ancient texts were from somewhere else, an ancient world far back in time whose meanings we cannot fully grasp. Between their ancient religious world and our contemporary secular world, there has always appeared to me to be a great gulf.

This book aims to address that gulf, and explore how in the midst of some of the issues and needs of our own times, these ancient texts can be re-imagined, so that their voices can more fully speak to us today.

The three introductory chapters set the stage. In these chapters, I ask the questions: Why the Psalms? What are the Psalms? And, conscious that these ancient songs and poems are prayers, how might we in our world now, pray the Psalms?

The main part of the book consists of the texts of thirty Psalms taken from Common Worship, each followed by a reflection whose purpose is to enable them to be heard again. The reflections do not presume to prescribe a definitive interpretation for today, but aim to stimulate further thought and imagination as we seek to make sense of them in a world which in so many respects is fundamentally different from the one in which they were formed. The Psalms chosen are those that particularly speak to me, but there are many others that readily lend themselves to this challenge of re-imagining.

How to use this book

For individuals

This book has been prepared for Lent, primarily with individuals in mind who aim to ‘keep Lent’ reading and reflecting on a Psalm on a daily basis. So it has a particular shape. Five Psalms and reflections are printed for each of the six weeks of Lent, one for each weekday, beginning on the Monday following the first Sunday of Lent and ending on Good Friday. Saturdays and Sundays provide opportunity to read back over the texts and reflections of the preceding week.

The first days of Lent – from Ash Wednesday to the following Monday – could be a time to read through the three introductory chapters which prepare the ground for the Psalms that follow.

Most Psalms cannot be easily categorized, but in each week there is, loosely, an overarching theme:

• In week one, as Lent begins, there are Psalms which touch on pilgrimage and journeying.

• In week two, the emphasis is on the practice of prayer.

• In week three, the Psalms chosen take us into the experience of wonder.

• In week four, which includes three sections of Psalm 119, the way of faith is a theme.

• In week five, as we move towards Holy Week, there are Psalms which explore hope.

• Finally for Holy Week itself, there are Psalms exploring loss and suffering.

The book can of course be used at any time of the year, and some may prefer a slower pace over a longer period, perhaps reading and reflecting on one or two Psalms each week.

For groups

The texts and reflections could also be explored in groups in Lent or at any time of the year. Below are suggestions of Psalms and reflections which may be more suitable for group discussion. At the end of each of these reflections there are one or more questions to begin a discussion.

Suggestions for study groups

Most groups meet once a week for the six weeks of Lent. Here are two suggestions as to how groups could use this book.

• It would be helpful if everyone who attends the Lent group has their own copy of the book which they use during the week. At the group each week, each person would be invited to say, of the Psalms and reflections which they have read that week, which they found most helpful, and why, and what questions were prompted. In the first week this would include the introductory three chapters. Then a wider discussion could ensue.

• The leader(s) of the group could choose two of the texts and reflections from the book which would then be discussed in the group. Everybody should have a copy of the text of the chosen Psalms which could be read aloud either responsorially by two groups taking alternate verses, or round the room. People are invited to share their thoughts and questions about the text of the Psalm before the reflection is read out, followed by further discussion. Two Psalms could probably be covered in one evening.

1

Why the Psalms?

Over a meal with friends in the local pub, we were chatting about how we were spending time. I mentioned that I was working on a book about the Psalms and, curious to know how these texts were perceived, I asked, ‘When you hear the word Psalms what comes to mind?’ There was a moment’s pause, before one of them, a strongly committed member of the Church of England and a long-standing lay reader, simply replied, ‘Oh dear’.

We laughed, and then she began to explain why, for her, other than some richly memorable verses, these ancient texts fail to generate any enthusiasm.

Were the question to be asked more widely, even among many church people, I suspect her response would not be untypical.

Reactions to the Psalms will of course vary hugely, depending on how much people see themselves as belonging or not belonging to a faith tradition, and to their experience of these texts.

Among people who do not belong to any faith tradition and are dismissive of the claims of religious faith, there might be recognition of the cultural value of the Psalms, but as for them being a resource for living in the secular scientific world of the twenty-first century, that would probably be regarded as ridiculous.

In contrast, among those for whom faith is important there will be many, certainly many within the Jewish tradition from which they come, who will treasure them.

They will treasure them because more than any other Old Testament texts they go to the heart of Hebrew religion, and – because they are prayers – tell us from the inside what it means to believe in the God of the Exodus, the God of the giving of the Law at Sinai, and the God who came to dwell in the great Temple in Jerusalem. So the Psalms remain to this day at the heart of Jewish worship.

Many in the Christian tradition will treasure them too, not least because they shaped the mind of Jesus of Nazareth, who would have almost certainly known them by heart. In the New Testament they are quoted more than any other book of the Old Testament. Many of the Psalms were understood as prophetic texts fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and from its beginnings the church has read the Psalms through the lens of its faith in Jesus as the Messiah. So they remain at the heart of Christian worship. In monasteries, cathedrals, churches and homes – wherever down the centuries Christians have gathered to pray – the Psalms, sometimes read, often chanted or sung, have been central to the life of prayer.

So they are loved and treasured by many. And yet, though they are at the heart of these traditions, I suspect that within the Church there are many, like my friend, who, when asked, would say that they feel ambivalent about them. They know their central place in the Judaeo/Christian story. They recognize that they have been a profound resource and encouragement to generations who have prayed them down the centuries. And yet hearing them read and sung in worship today they find them strange and forbidding, and from another world that they cannot recognize. Nevertheless, they might add, there are verses within them that they do indeed treasure.

And that is how, I suspect, even among regular church-goers the Psalms are largely known. As fragments. As dislocated individual verses, that nevertheless carry profound meaning.

A particular verse can remain an important part of a person’s spiritual memory even though the original context of that verse may have been forgotten, if it was ever known. Perhaps the fragment has become embedded through association with a particular person, place or occasion – through a baptism, wedding or funeral. But how that particular fragment fits within the meaning of the Psalm from which it originally came, may well be a mystery.

The opening line of Psalm 23, ‘The Lord is my shepherd’, is probably the best known line of the psalter. The opening line of Psalm 121, ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help’, is another cherished text. If asked to name a favourite Psalm, 84 might be mentioned, but it is likely that it will be remembered through the one verse referring to the sparrow finding ‘her an house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young’. The haunting line from Psalm 139, ‘If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me’, evoking a Presence that will never fail even in the most extreme circumstances, may resonate with many. The robust confidence of the opening line of Psalm 46, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble’, is also very familiar. The first line of Psalm 137, ‘By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion’, will be widely known not least because of the hit single of the band Boney M. The later line in the same Psalm, ‘how shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?’, evoking the bitter experience of displacement, has entered common speech, but many who know the phrase might well not know where it comes from.

Those who have been choristers in cathedrals or sung in church choirs will know particular lines from the Psalms not so much because of the text, but because of memorable musical settings. ‘O taste and see how gracious the Lord is’ from Psalm 34 will be remembered because of the beautiful solo beginning of Vaughan Williams’s setting; the opening line of Psalm 122, ‘I was glad when they said unto me’, has been immortalized through Hubert Parry’s musical masterpiece; the line from Psalm 119, ‘Teach me O Lord the way of thy statutes’, will be familiar because of Thomas Attwood’s gentle lyrical setting; the first line of Psalm 84, ‘How lovely are thy dwellings fair’, is known through the music of Brahms’s Requiem. The list could go on and on.

However, beyond such fragments, for all the reciting and singing of them down the centuries, the Psalms as whole texts can come across, to the modern reader, as strange and difficult.

And that should be no surprise, for these are ancient texts from an ancient world. Like any great literature the Psalms reflect the culture they have emerged from, and at first sight this culture does indeed appear to be very different from the world we know.

A cursory reading tells of a world centred on an all-powerful, ever-watchful God who is Creator, Rescuer and Guide of a persistently wayward people. This God is everything to these people, all their thinking and behaviour revolves around him. Despite their disobedience and faithlessness this God seems to be endlessly merciful, but he can also be terrifying in his anger, a judge who is vengeful against enemies and punitive against his own people through natural causes or plague, though the Psalms also speak of him as a warrior going out with his people’s armies. A particular focus of the psalmist’s world would seem to be the great Temple on Mount Zion, where God dwells and where solemn feast days are celebrated, and sacrifices and burnt offerings are made. In the society that surrounds the Temple, we hear of kings being besieged by enemies and threatened by court intrigue in a world overseen by angels and evil spirits, and haunted by charmers and weavers of spells. It is a world in which the ‘wicked’ and the ‘righteous’ are constantly set over against each other, and where unidentified ‘enemies’ ever lurk.

Simply to list just a few features of the psalmist’s ancient world underlines how far from us it is. The world of these texts is not one we easily recognize. The gulf between it, and the scientific, technologically advanced secular world of the twenty-first century in which – in the West anyway – religion has been pushed to the margins with the claims of faith appearing to many to be absurd, would appear to be vast.

How, we may well ask, can these ancient texts speak to us today?

We need to look deeper. Though these Psalms emerge from an ancient and we might say ‘primitive’ culture, they speak, often in the most evocative poetry, of issues that are perennial to the question of what it means to be fully human. The longing for justice, the emptiness of riches, care for the poor, delight in the created world, the quest for happiness, the search for integrity, the need for silence and solitude, the struggle with grief and loneliness and different kinds of mental illness, the recognition of mortality . . . these are just some of the many issues that the psalmist explores.

But at the heart of all of these explorations is the psalmist’s faith in a transcendent Other, the God of all the earth. To the contemporary mind, immersed in an aggressively secular culture, that perhaps is the really difficult thing.

But could it be that, notwithstanding the ancient cultural context in which this belief is expressed, the Psalms are in fact pointing to the greatest malaise of our times: the erosion of belief in a transcendent reality against which all our lives can be measured and shaped, and given hope and meaning?

In his Foreword to his book A Walk with Four Spiritual Guides, the writer Andrew Harvey tells of a conversation he had with the monk and mystic Fr Bede Griffiths in his ashram beside the River Kaveri in south India just a year before Bede died. In this conversation Bede speaks prophetically into the frightening confusions and chaos of our times and identifies the root of humanity’s need. Harvey writes:

It is early December 1992. I am sitting with the eighty-six year old Catholic monk and mystic Father Bede Griffiths in his hut in the South Indian morning waiting for an Australian film crew, who is making a film of his life, to arrive. I am the host of the documentary. For eight marvellous days, Bede and I have been talking about God, the Church, the world’s mystical traditions, and the various stages of that search for truth that brought him to India forty years before.

Bede paused suddenly (we had been talking about his early love of the romantic poets) and then said, quietly and insistently, ‘You know, of course, Andrew, that we are now in the hour of God.’

Although it was a warm, fragrant morning, I shivered.

‘When you say hour of God, what do you mean?’

‘I mean that the whole human race has now come