Tag Archives: Psalms

Ruining the Psalms

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So the Psalms are generally considered almost a dessert when reading the Bible. The number of songs that come out of them, you can hear in your head as you’re reading. Sometimes I am almost singing along as I breeze along.

Except….. okay, I did a Samuel, Kings, Chronicles deep dive. These books are a little bit out of chronological order, but they feature the rise and fall (and rise and fall and rise and fall….) of Israel when it was one kingdom, and then Israel and Judah when it was two. And its exiling and rebuilding (twice) etc.

But the bulk of Sam/King/Chron complex features the adventures of David, from his anointing through the reigns of his descendants, (roughly running from three hours to 54 years). And when you have read them carefully, and used some online study guides to sort the chronology, you will see how hard David worked to get into power and keep it. And some of the very nasty acts that included.

Then you read Psalms, and you see that David and the other authors (there are at least six, but authorities differ) are basically either saying “Thanks God it’s going great and we owe it all to you” or “Help God, why aren’t you helping us, this is embarrassing in front of our enemies?” Plus a lot of them are very…. ehm…. flattering about David. Definitely meant to be sung at throneside banquets.

I grew up in a narrative that framed David’s life in a particular way. David was God’s chosen king. Therefore, whatever David did to become and stay king was fine. And, you know, that Bathsheba thing, that was just in there to show God could use flawed individuals.

OKay….. but reading these beautiful songs of worship in historic context, well, it gets conflicting. No pun intended, because many of them are about battles won or lost, and whether God showed up to help. And who he showed up for.

David once lined up a bunch of men and killed them by numerical order. David couldn’t figure out who was lying to him and who wasn’t when he had to flee his royal city (for the fifth or sixth time, I lost count). David knew better than to kill Joab (who was his nephew) even though he really really wanted to, because he needed this warrior to keep him powerful. They spent their lives eyeing each other, knives behind their backs.

The Psalms are complicated when you read them in this way. Summon your power, O God, because we want to fight. Hide me in the shelter of your wings, because we’re losing. Lead me beside still waters, because I’m exhausted with fighting.

What is the message of Psalms? For many, many commentators, it is that God chose someone and no matter what that asshole did, God stuck by him–and his increasingly awful grandchildren. For many charismatic churches, it is the source of beautiful worship music; sing the melody, never mind historic context.

For me, it is a reminder that nothing in this world has EVER been simple and Trump is not the worst threat OR promise Christianity has ever seen. Work out our salvation with fear and trembling and perhaps a modicum of common sense.

Comfort Books

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I hope everyone had a safe and happy Fourth of July yesterday. Ours passed comfortably in a swelter of heat, a nice cold plate of veggies and cheese for supper, and gorgeous fireworks with friends on the lawn. (They taught my newly-American husband–a native of Scotland–to say “Oooooh” and “Aaaaaah” at the right times, and presented him with a stars-n-stripes baseball hat.)

We returned to find our neurotic younger dog Bert had chewed his way through the baby gate that keeps him from the bookshop floor, to huddle quivering under the table. Apparently, his firework reactions were less “Oooh! Aaaah” than “Nooooo! Aaaaaagh!”

In righting the destruction Bert had wrought, my mind turned to the rituals and readings we use to comfort ourselves in such situations; had Bert been able to pull his favorite children’s book off the shelf–Wind in the Willows, of course–and read it (as opposed to shred it) he might have been able to forget the noise outside and find his happy place.

I have a few “my troubles can’t get to me here” books to which I return when my heart is uneasy, my brain a hamster wheel of all-go, no-forward-motion. Let me just share five here, and then you tell me yours.

Psalms: as in Old Testament Bible. The letters in the New Testament are also pretty calming, and for those of us who believe the back story, they return the balance of seeing the Big Picture versus the immediate events of the day.

Except for Me and Thee, Jessamyn West. Such a happy story, even when it’s bittersweet. If you’ve not read this tale of a Quaker family and their daily-life silly adventures, it is funny and charming; you can feel your blood pressure dropping as you read.

Bert and I share affinity for Wind in the Willows. My two favorite parts are the visit from Pan when they find the lost otter child, and the return to Mole’s house for Christmas. This sweetness comes wrapped in warm brown fur.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Call me crazy. A friend who works in a prison says she once asked the shrinks there, who visit ax murderers and people who killed women and children, “What do you do to relax?” A lot of them watched that serial-murder TV show “Dexter,” because “as bad as it gets here, it’s not that bad.” I think The Road is like that for many of us. No matter what’s going on, it ain’t that bad.

Anything by Louise Rennison. If you’re unfamiliar with this British writer, she turns out faux diaries of a “typical” English girl’s madcap adventures in love and family. Lines like “7 pm: I shall never think of him again!” and “7:02 pm: I hate him. I shall call and tell him so” intersperse with bad hair days, deciding what to wear to those all-important dances, and other stuff that makes one laugh out loud. Rennison is hysterical.

So, I showed you mine. How about yours?