Emerson has a point. It isn’t easy to grow into the person you are rather than the person someone else – or society – wants and expects you to be. Other ways to put it: To thine own self be true; Be yourself: everyone else is taken. It requires courage, patience, and strength of character.
Being yourself is a Big Idea, but not a complete or sufficient one. It can easily become an excuse for selfish behavior and a disregard for the value of others. If I were to fill out this big idea, I guess it would be along these lines:
Be yourself – a unique gift to the world that is always connected to every other person. And remember to help others be the selves they were meant to be as well.
If you enter the Hall of Human Life in Boston’s Museum of Science, you can check your vital signs, test your balance, see if your social network is strong enough to foster emotional and cognitive health, watch chicks hatch, check out a beehive, and see cotton-top tamarins. You will also find a display that shows how much of our own DNA is shared with other species. Just a few:
Trees: 50%
Zebrafish: 70%
Dog: 86%
Cats: 90%
Chimpanzee: 99%
We have a lot in common with the other life that inhabits our little blue planet. In an evolutionary sense, we are kindred, related by the common building blocks that govern our growth and traits. At the same time, we are a diverse bunch, having different needs and adapting to our home planet in different ways over millions of years.
I guess this shouldn’t be surprising. Painters have been using the same colors, creating wildly different pieces – Munch and O’Keefe. Musicians have done the same with sound – Simone and Bach. How could it be otherwise in creating life?
In the 4th century BCE, the Pythagoreans proposed a radical idea: the Earth was not stationary, but moving. In the 3rd century BCE, Aristarchus of Samos proposed a heliocentric model of the solar system: the sun as the center point, and the Earth moving around it in circles.
Ptolemy proposed a geocentric model, and he worked out the math to accompany it. It was a complex system, but was the predominant one for hundreds of years. This was the model incorporated into theology – humanity as the focus of all creation, living on the unmoving center of the entire creation.
Fast forward to the 1500’s, and Renaissance mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus proposes the Heliocentric Model once again. Then come Kepler and Galileo. Based on what is mathematically simpler and more elegant, Kepler proposes elliptical orbits rather than circular ones; Galileo comes along with supporting evidence seen through his telescope. In spite of theological objections and suppression, the geocentric model is eventually rejected. In spite of preconceived notions, observational data and advanced mathematics displace Earth from the center of all things to its current position: orbiter around a sun, and one planet among billions.
Humanity no longer inhabits the immovable center of creation, and the universe does not revolve around humanity’s home. Such displacement isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new perspective on a much larger reality – one that incorporates our particular species on our small planet without pretending it’s the only reason the entire cosmos came into being. As a species, it’s similar to the shift that children have when they realize that their parents had lives before and beyond their own.
What a wonderful, big idea: that the universe is about more than just one particular part, and that its mystery and majesty are not limited to human knowledge or imagination. God’s creation is not governed by human preference for circles rather than ellipses, but governed by its own internal structure.
I think going around in ellipses rather than living on an immovable focal point is endlessly interesting. I love the fact that I am a part of something so big, something that has made room for me and every other life form. Just because the world doesn’t revolve around any one of us doesn’t mean we aren’t valuable – it just means everyone else is valuable, too.
Einstein’s theory of general relativity didn’t mean that everything is relative – that nothing is sure, or that there’s no real way to value one thing over another. Einstein’s theory is that everything is connected, Related not relative. The Butterfly Effect and John Donne’s poem are both pointing to the same truth as Einstein’s theory: that everything is related to everything else.
One particular negative example comes to mind for me. Our friend Ben Suddard’s oyster beds were damaged by the run-off of all the chemical fertilizers used in towns twenty miles upstream from the bay. The connection wasn’t obvious, but it was real and powerful.
There are many examples on the positive side as well. But one of the most profound for me: nothing in creation is unrelated to the Creator. Perhaps that’s why one of the names for Jesus is God-With-Us…
We have taken the road through the psalms of Ascent, and now we reach the end.
But it’s never really the end, is it? Because there are always places that call to us, that put our feet back on the road.
Even if where we go next is a familiar place, the road and the ascent has changed us. We aren’t really going back to who and where we were – we are walking into the wonder of a time and place that we see more clearly for having left.
Every place we call home is a temporary dwelling place; our time is limited and we move on.
But before we set out again, let’s dwell in the place that is the reason for our journey: the house of the Lord.
Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord!
Lift up your hands to the holy place, and bless the Lord.
May the Lord, maker of heaven and earth, bless you from Zion.
Psalm 134, NRSV, A Song of Ascents
Bless the Lord for all the challenges we face on our journeys – they teach us patience and give us strength.
Bless the Lord for the everything-is-falling-into-place times: we see the beauty around us more easily for them.
Bless the Lord for the work we have been given to do – we appreciate rest more because of it, and we have the chance to honor creation through it.
Bless the Lord for the journey. Bless the Lord for journey’s end. Bless the Lord. Make us a blessing. Bless.
June was that rare person who could be busy with five different things and never be too busy or in too much of a hurry to talk with you. On several occasions, when I was one of many guests in her home, June managed to feed a crowd and keep up a conversation that was always gracious and never seemed rushed. I’m not sure how she did that, but I’m so grateful I got to experience it. I always left her house and her presence with a lighter heart and a grateful spirit.
My life is richer for June’s presence in it, and I am grateful to God for the time I got to spend with her.
In his book, The Spirituality of the Psalms, Walter Brueggemann discusses three different kinds of psalms – psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation, and psalms of reorientation. The first are psalms of thanks and praise coming from a place of blessing. In Brueggemann’s words, these psalms in a variety of ways articulate the joy, delight, goodness, coherence, and reliability of God, God’s creation, and God’s governing law (p.8). The disorientation psalms are for seasons of change and instability. This kind of psalm constitutes a dismantling of the old, known world and a relinquishing of safe, reliable confidence in God’s good creation. Themovement of dismantling includes a rush of negativites, including rage, resentment, guilt, shame, isolation, despair, hatred, and hostility (p,10). The reorientation psalms are songs from a community surprised by a new gift from God, a new coherence made present to us just when we thought all was lost…this move of departure to new life includes a rush of positive responses, including delight, amazement, wonder, awe, gratitude and thanksgiving (P. 11)
Songs of Ascent are sung on the road to Jerusalem, approaching the center of the Jewish faith – God’s holy temple. Psalm 132 is a song affirming God’s presence among the people – God’s in his temple, all’s right in the world. But I think it can be understood and sung from two very different places of understanding.
The first, an orientation psalm: of course God is with us – that’s the way things are.
The second, a reorientation psalm: God is with us! – it could have been otherwise…
O Lord, remember in David’s favor all the hardships he endured; how he swore to the Lord and vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob, “I will not enter my house or get into my bed;
I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the Mighty One of Israel.”
We heard of it in Ephrathah; we found it in the fields of Jaar. “Let us go to his dwelling place; let us worship at his footstool.”
Rise up, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your faithful shout for joy. For your servant David’s sake do not turn away the face of your anointed one.
The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: “One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my decrees that I shall teach them, their sons also, forevermore, shall sit on your throne.”
For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his habitation; “This is my resting place forever; here I will reside, for I have desired it.
I will abundantly bless its provisions; I will satisfy its poor with bread. Its priests I will clothe with salvation, and its faithful will shout for joy.
There will I cause a horn to sprout up for David; I have prepared a lamp for my anointed one. His enemies I will clothe with disgrace, but on him, his crown will gleam.”
Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities. Psalm 130, NRSV A Song of Ascents.
In one of her books, Anne Lamott wrote that her prayers boiled down to two things: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! and Help me! Help me! Help me! The psalm above is one of the latter.
When we are in deep, dark places, we realize what true power is: the power to lift us from our darkest night into the light of dawn. The power of God isn’t annihilation, but restoration. Neither the darkness around us nor the darkness within us can keep our cries from reaching God; neither is perpetual, and the power of God frees us from both. We cannot save ourselves, but we are not forever lost. Steadfast love redeems even our sorry selves. Then, it’s time for the Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! prayer.
“Often have they attacked me from my youth” – Let Israel now say – “Often have they attacked me from my youth, yet they have not prevailed against me.
The Plowers plowed on my back; they made their furrows long.”
The Lord is righteous; he has cut the cords of the wicked;
May all who hate Zion be put to shame and turned backward.
Let them be like the grass on the housetops that withers before it grows up, with which the reapers do not fill their hands or binders of sheaves their arms, while those who pass by do not say,
“The Blessing of the Lord be upon you! We bless you in the name of the Lord!”
Psalm 129, NRSV, A Song of Ascents
How do you deal with people who do you wrong? Who hurt you, not just as an individual but as part of a community? I know I’m supposed to bless those who curse me and work for the good of those who would harm me – it’s what a life of compassion looks like. But it’s damn difficult to do.
One of the gifts of the psalms is the voicing of the whole range of emotions – happiness, joy, sadness, despair, anger, and vindictiveness are all in there. They are songs and poems of honesty, which means they are as mean spirited as they are forgiving or blessing.
Sometimes, we need to give voice to the awful feelings that gather like stones in our hearts; we need to be honest with ourselves about our feelings – even the mean and vengeful ones. It’s the first step in letting them go, in releasing them rather than coveting them like the diamonds and pearls they are not. Once we say the curses we feel, we can release the weight of them vocally rather than with fists and knives. Free of that burden, we might have enough room in our hearts to wish for the good of our enemies.
[Warning: Once said, such things need to be given up. If we hang onto them after voicing them, they will only get bigger…]
Happy is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways.
You shall eat of the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.
Thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.
The Lord bless you from Zion. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.
May you see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel!
Psalm 128, NRSV
The last few verses of this psalm move us from our own immediate kin to the larger community of faith. It’s a benediction of sorts, asking that we are blessed within a much larger blessing all who find their soul’s home in Jerusalem – in honoring the God of Abraham and Sarah.
May you live a long and blessed life – one that includes seeing your grandchildren. May you live in a time when your whole nation lives in peace – and wealth enough to sustain everyone.
In some ways, it’s the same thing that we pray at night: bless those we love, thanks for what we have, bless this nation and everyone in it. There’s nothing wrong with these prayers; they keep us mindful of our families, our friends, and our nearby neighbors – the home team. But there’s an important element that isn’t spoken in this psalm, but is foundational to the Jewish faith: they are blessed to be a blessing to the entire world, to send their love beyond their own people. If we forget this last part, we run the risk of seeking our own good at the expense of those beyond our own particular time and place.
If we forget this last part, we just might forget that God’s love includes everyone – even and especially those we don’t know.
