A Psalm For All Seasons
I want to ask you a
question. In true Unitarian
Universalist fashion, there are no right or wrong answers. Could I have a show of hands--how many of
you ever read the entire Book of Psalms?
How many of you have not read the Psalms or perhaps, read only a
few? I never read more than a few of
the psalms till I entered seminary. I
always thought David, the shepherd king wrote the Psalms but the truth is we
don’t know who wrote them or exactly when they were written.1 Another truth is that it doesn’t really matter because the psalms
speak to the very real situations and emotions we encounter as human beings and
as religious liberals.
In the fall, I took a class on the Psalms with one of my
favorite professors, Dr. Denise Hopkins. As I describe the three different
seasons of orientation, disorientation and new orientation reflected in the
Psalms, you might think about your journey through the seasons of life. Which season are you in now or are you in
several at once? What season have you
occupied much of your life? How can you
ease the transition from one season to another? My hope is that this sermon awakens a curiosity in you about
the Psalms and how they might speak to you.
The season of
orientation! Most of us enjoy seasons when we feel on top
of the world—when our lives flow smoothly. If we were a cat, we’d probably
purr. This is the season of orientation
and well-being that Walter Brueggemann refers to in the reflection quote at the
top of your bulletin.2
Seasons of disorientation! This
country entered disorientation on September 11th and many people
have been in this season since then. We
know this season by its intense feelings of anger, despair, shame, and
grief. This community has gone through
its own share of disorientation as we lost so many beloved church members in
the fall. Disorientation shakes us
up. It is the pits—we all know when
we’re there.
New orientation comes as a delightful surprise! Brueggemann says it occurs when “joy breaks
through the despair”3. We come alive again. We feel relieved. We
land a new job, we recover from an illness, or we discover some new blessing in
our lives that makes us feel hopeful and strong again.
The psalms testify to all
these seasons. The psalmist enters the
season of orientation with a feeling of certainty, trusting that things are in
order. Psalm 145 praises God with these
words: “…The Lord upholds all who are
falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due
season.” This expresses confidence in
God, but the author does not seem to feel want, hunger or deprivation.
I think much of our country lived in the season of orientation
prior to September 11th—there were some things we counted on, some
things we trusted. Overall, “God was on our side”. But there is a danger
associated with the season of orientation—it is the danger of complacency and
smugness. When we feel “all is right
with the world”, we can forget that there are others for whom the world is a
place of suffering and pain.
As a white, middle class woman, I can forget that people of color
are oppressed or marginalized everyday.
I can take for granted the privileges that I enjoy just because of the
color of my skin. As a heterosexual
woman, I can forget that my lesbian and gay sisters and brothers are targets of
hate crimes and discrimination. I can see movies and read novels that tell love
stories with which I can identify. The
Intern Committee discussed the fact that Anne Arundel Medical Center doesn’t
have a psychiatric unit. It doesn’t
affect me, but what of those people who have nowhere else to turn--where do
they go? The psalms of orientation
comment on these times when the people of Israel enjoyed the benefits of the status
quo. But the Psalmists also acknowledge
that the community must respond to those who suffer oppression or despair. So
we encounter psalms of disorientation or lamentation, which outnumber the other
two seasons.
Perhaps like me, you have
cycled through all the seasons lately, but the season of disorientation
prevails as I struggle with issues around war and pacifism in this post
September 11th world. I wonder if you too might be going through
similar struggles. I feel drawn to
focus on this season.
I preached on a lament,
Psalm 137, when I went before the Regional Subcommittee that affirmed me as a
candidate for our ministry. It was a
very good sermon, but I left something crucial out—the last verse. The beautiful
lament in our hymnal, By the Waters of Babylon, also left out this
verse. I think we leave it out because it is so hard to hear. In these days of war and terrorism, I think
it is an important line for us to acknowledge.
Psalm 137 refers to the
exiled people of Israel living in a strange land. Their captors made them leave
their homeland and taunted them constantly. It ends this way: “Happy shall they
be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” It makes me sick to read those lines. I
want to cut them from the rest of the poetic verses. I want to cut them out of
my heart. But I cannot. For those lines tell a bit of truth about us
human beings—that anger and rage can be a part of our grief. Biblical
commentators say these emotions of rage and vengefulness often go together when
tragedy strikes. Don’t we still grapple
with all these emotions almost four months after September 11th? There are no indications that the psalmist
actually acted out those spiteful feelings.4
The psalmist’s feelings do not have the
final word. Similarly, we do not have
to act out these feelings. We can recognize them and confess them. We can work our way through times of
devastation.
To illustrate how we can
move from one season to another, I want to tell you about one of my
clients. I will change some of her
characteristics to protect her confidentiality. Mary was a beautiful young woman whose mother was an
alcoholic. All eight children were
neglected. Mary felt deeply ashamed of
her poverty and lack of education. She never thought she was smart enough to
get her GED. She went back to the same
bad relationships because she didn’t think she was good enough. Her life was
filled with lamentation. But she had something
I see in most people—the courage that comes out of facing the painful aspects
of life. One day, she shared some new
insight with me and a few tears ran down my cheeks. She thought she upset me. I
explained that I was thinking how she had transformed her life—how bright and
verbal she was, how beautiful on the inside and the outside. Mary changed her whole life around little by
little; learning to love herself and others. Like all of us, she will always
have her difficulties, but she worked through the seasons to come to a new
understanding about the meaning of her life.
The lament Psalms challenge
us not to ignore our times of disorientation.
Matthew Fox recounts a story about Beethoven in his book, Original
Blessing. Beethoven experienced the
exhilaration of nature in the countryside—bird calls, a village band and the
music of distant thunder. A season of
orientation! Then, he learned he was going deaf. Fox says, “Imagine a musician going deaf—a dancer without legs, a
painter with no eyes, a public speaker with no voice.”5
Ultimately Beethoven moved from despair
into a time of new orientation that resulted in his Pastoral Symphony, no.
6. He could not hear the sounds of the pasture so he could not “reproduce”
them—instead, he learned to “recreate” them.6
Our last season is one of
reorientation or new orientation.
Thanksgiving and joy abound in the words of Psalm 98: “Make a joyful
noise to the Lord, all the earth:… Sing
praises…with the lyre... With trumpets
and the sound of the horn,…Let the sea roar,… Let the floods clap their hands,
let the hills sing together for joy…”
The psalmist calls upon sea, hills, instruments, and human voices to
rejoice and be glad. But how do you celebrate times of thanksgiving? How do you demonstrate your gratitude for
the things that come to you through no effort of your own? Who or what are you grateful to? If you
believe in God or some Higher Power, how do you express your thankfulness? If you believe in the human spirit, how do
you acknowledge the gifts you’ve been given?
Those are the seasons of the
Psalms as I experience them. If you
want to explore the meaning of these seasons through studying the psalms, I
will be offering a series of workshops beginning in February. Even if you never read the Psalms, my
message to you is simple— These seasons are part of our religious journey—of
our search for truth and meaning.
Strive to be truly present with one another in all the seasons of your
life; do not hurry one another to move from disorientation to new orientation.
The ancient words of the Psalms have
been passed down for millennium. May
each of you, my friends, know that you need not make this journey alone—that
there are others to comfort, challenge and celebrate with you on this road.
Bring your whole self to this one life you’re given and may it bring you closer
to fulfillment, wholeness and compassion. Be a blessing to one another and
cherish this community we are given.
© Susan Karlson, Intern Minister
January 6, 2002
1 Hopkins, Denise Dombkowski. Journey
Through The Psalms, Wesley Theological
Seminary
web site as it is out of print), 13.
2 Brueggemann, Walter. The Message of the Psalms A
Theological Commentary.
Augsburg, Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1984, 19.
3 Ibid.
4 McCann Jr., J. Clinton. The Book of Psalms in the
New Interpreter’s Bible,
Vol. IV. Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1996, 1228-1229.
5Fox, Matthew.
Original Blessing. Santa
Fe, New Mexico: Bear and Company
Publishing, 154.
6
Ibid.
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