Psalm 63
A psalm of David, when
he was in the wilderness of Judah.
O God, you are my God—
it is you I seek!
For you my body yearns;
for you my soul thirsts,
In a land parched,
lifeless,
and without water.
I look to you in the
sanctuary
to see your power and
glory.
For your love is better
than life;*
my lips shall ever
praise you!
I will bless you as long
as I live;
I will lift up my hands,
calling on your name.
My soul shall be sated
as with choice food,
with joyous lips my
mouth shall praise you!
I think of you upon my
bed,
I remember you through
the watches of the night
You indeed are my
savior,
and in the shadow of
your wings I shout for joy.
My soul clings fast to
you;
your right hand upholds
me.
But those who seek my
life will come to ruin;
they shall go down to
the depths of the netherworld!
Those who would hand
over my life to the sword shall
become the prey of
jackals!
But the king shall
rejoice in God;
all who swear by the
Lord shall exult,
but the mouths of liars
will be shut!
1 A psalm of David, when he was in the wilderness of Judah.
A psalm from the wilderness – David speaks from
his heart in a place, (from a place) of desolation. The wilderness is the
place of thirst, where man’s prowess cannot help him. It is a place
where the human being may lose his illusions of self-sufficiency, and also may
find a quiet sanctuary in which he can turn to God in his inmost heart. Perhaps
the hearts of prophets (in a sense, all believers) are occasionally driven out
into the desert – away from the noise of everyday things – so that they might
hear the voice of God. Our coming Lenten journey hopes to accomplish
this, but it cannot happen sufficiently as a matter of mere form, of appearance
and ritualistic gesture. Man’s intentionality must be put to the
test.
As the desert removes man from his external
preoccupations – he is now forced to make a choice. He cannot immerse
himself so easily in his imagination or hide from himself. Everything is
laid bare for the purpose of allowing him to make a choice to adore. The
spiritual desert does not imply a change of heart or a turning to God – for the
desert is likewise the domain of demons and wild beasts. Rather, it is
here that masks are removed and reality takes shape amongst the sands.
The desert shall bring forth hunger and thirst – and man will be forced to
decide in his naked freedom which way to turn.
So often times I am distracted and allured by
that which does not satisfy. Here may I be given the blessing of the
desert. Sometimes it is only when all the other distractions are out of
reach that my heart is willing to seek God. As simple as it sounds,
sometimes it is only the experience of God being all we have, that we realize
that God is all we need. In finding Him we discover the only thing that
truly fulfills human beings. Yet, this satiation is not the end of
the spiritual battle. From this fulfillment, my heart now satisfied so
often fails to have the proper humility (and the heart of humility is
gratitude). Doing well, I am tempted to believe that I succeed by
own strength, that I am happy because of my own holiness. I fail to remember
the words Deuteronomy 8:18: “Remember then the LORD, your God, for he is the
one who gives you the power”. Like Gomer
(the wife of Hosea) I receive all the gifts of grain and the oil and the wine .
. . and go right back to my lovers (idols) rather than turning to the one who
is the source of all the good things.
As St. Teresa of Avila says: “He who has God
lacks nothing, God alone suffices”. For this to be true, not only in
fact but also in living faith, we must frequently approach God (or rather, be
approached by God) in the wilderness - amidst trials and frustrations. For
God to suffice, (for God alone CAN suffice) we must be laid bare, without
barriers, to encounter the true and living God, not merely our heavenly perceptions
that we make in our own image. Indeed, my idea of God cannot satisfy
for it does not exist in reality. The concrete reality of my need for God
exceeds the capacity of my intellect or imagination. (This is part of the
divine genius of how man is designed.) All that can satisfy is the true
God who is Mystery, who is beyond my ability to conceive, analyze, categorize
or rationalize. My heart needs a God that is greater that itself, a
forgiveness that goes further than my sins, a love more rich than my poverty,
and an abundance greater that the interior famine in which we find
ourselves. This idea leads directly into the next verse:
2 O God, you are my God-- for you I long! For
you my body yearns; for you my soul thirsts, Like a land parched, lifeless, and
without water.
For those who believe, who does not identify
with these words? The desert in its dryness becomes a mirror for ourselves
devoid of the life of the Spirit. We cannot escape our nature. Stamped into our
very being is this insatiable longing for the infinite, the absolute, the
Divine. It is the need for Destiny (and destiny with a face). The
heart is a vessel, longing not only to be full but to overflow. (This
is how the love of God naturally flows to love of neighbor). In body and
soul we are confronted with our poverty, our need. It takes great
courage to express this need, an openness which dares an entreaty that it may
be fulfilled.
It is much easier (though inefficient and
self-defeating) to try to address this need by creating idols in our own
image. Make no mistake, Man’s thirst for God is absolute and will
drive his being one way or another. Man must either a) deny or detach
from this desire, or b) be in relationship with the living God, or c) try to
replace Him in vain. Idolatry is a longing for God on our own terms.
Idolatry attempts to bring this thirst down to the level of human control, that
one might avoid the natural condition of poverty. Man attempts to replace
God as the primary source for giving and receiving love, and to ‘liberate’
himself from being a dependent being.
But Jesus, on the contrary, tells us “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit”. I cannot help but think in my efforts to the
contrary that I embracing the curse.
How often do I think this way? Chasing
ghosts and shadows, I so often am misled to believe that some temporal thing
might satisfy an eternal longing. “This job, this new activity, this
new friendship or romance, this new ministry, shall give me the peace and
contentment that I crave”. Yet over and over they will fail to
satisfy. Our nature is inescapable. We need bread and water to
survive mortally, and Christ’s “living water” and “bread of life” to survive
spiritually. Here is the wisdom of the desert, that those who live in the wilderness value water, not gold. Christ
asks us: “Why do you labor for that which is not bread?” Jesus also told
us not to work for food that spoils, but for the food that will last for
eternal life. In this he asks us to come and receive what will
actually satisfy the cravings of the heart. One can imagine Jesus
PLEADING with us:
“Come to ME, you who are weary and find life
burdensome. Come to ME, and I will give you rest. I am
meek and humble of heart, and I will give you rest for your souls. I know
you better than you know yourself. Come to ME. I alone
have the words of Eternal life, and I have come to breath them into your souls.
Please, come to ME, as I want to give you rest”
3 So I look to you in the sanctuary to see your
power and glory.
“Lord, show me your face!” This
desire wells up from within us as we long for the Glory of the Lord.
Where do we get such temerity to make demands of the divine majesty that
surpasses all understanding, who holds the very earth in his hands? Indeed,
our boldness is born out our faith which He planted within us! As
St. Augustine writes: “You have made us for yourself O Lord, and our hearts are
restless until they rest in you.” St Paul writes in Galatians that ‘As
proof that you are children, God sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying out, “Abba, Father”’. Mindful that merciful God created us to be in
relationship with Him, let us not be ashamed of our needs like a child needing
its parent’s arms. Let us treasure and honor that gift of faith given so
that we can ask in confidence. Let us not be ashamed of the way we are
made. Let us follow our need for love, like following a stream to
its source, knowing that gift of faith
given reassures us of our Father’s desire that we should both ask and receive.
Where shall we look? In the sanctuary, the
Holy place set apart. In God all things
are held together, for in Him all things consist. The Sanctuary is that
place where our hearts become aware that God is all in all. It is the
place where we see how all things come together in God. It is precisely here, in this recognition,
that we become “set apart”, “sanctified”. For in seeking Him as source of
life, we shall find Him abundantly recognizing Him in all things held together.
4 For your love is better than life; my lips
offer you worship!
Only here in the Old Testament is anything
prized above life--in this case God's love. In the lips that offer worship, one
confesses with the mouth what one has been given in faith. Faith
organically bears fruit – just as growth is the natural response to water and sunlight.
His love is better than life, for what is life without the source of
life? For our life to have meaning, we must be in love with life, with
the one who is LIFE itself.
Should we be surprised when someone longs for
death if they are feeling there is no more love in his life? What
is life without meaning, without purpose, without destiny? What
consolation has man, if there is nothing greater than himself, nothing above
him to worship, to adore? This question goes to the very nature of the
human being, the level of nature where reality becomes aware of itself. It
is the question of ultimate vulnerability, ultimate need for something, for
someone other, above. It is this love
that is better than life, and it is THIS love that even our mortal life should
not be prized above it.
The witness of the martyrs testifies to this
truth. “Love for Life did not deter them from death”. Indeed,
rather than blind fanaticism, martyrdom can be the most reasonable thing in the
world. Love for this passing life did not deter them from holding
fast to eternal life. They cling to that which is most valuable. This is wisdom. Heroism here is the
holding fast to the Truth and offering true worship through blood. They
have made the reasonable choice of the imperishable treasure, in testimony to
Christ’s words: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,
which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he
has and buys that field.” Mat 13:44
5 I will bless you as long as I live; I will
lift up my hands, calling on your name.
In Worship, we plug into a presence that is not
us. And we need that Other. We must Bless the Lord. What else can
we do, save stretch our hands and call upon the name of the Lord? Do we
dare stretch out our hands? Do I dare to come to God as I am , Blessing Him as
a beggar, longing for him to fill me with his presence? Everything is
right here, not for the taking, but for the asking. I have stretched out
my hands. Who can be saved? What is impossible for man is possible for
God. We want the impossible. This is why, since we can't give it to
ourselves, all our hope lies in having outstretched hands. Just as we did
not give ourselves our existence, we cannot by ourselves provide the meaning.
The question of meaning brings us to the moment where we must stretch out
our hands. For if there is meaning, than by definition we cannot create
it for ourselves, as we did not create ourselves. We need to be
present to the presence, and have the Presence become present to us.
Thus, it is more reasonable to humbly admit that
Man cannot provide meaning for himself. Man’s dignity is preserved when
he does not allow the deepest desires of his heart to be marginalized. This
desire is met through the stretching out of our hands, the act of the
prayer. Prayer ceases to be a means to an end, for prayer (as union
with God) becomes the end in itself, and the veiled experience of heaven on
earth.
6 My soul shall savor the rich banquet of
praise, with joyous lips my mouth shall honor you!
In the act of praising God, God himself becomes
present. The joy of praising God (though this is a joy in and of
itself) primarily comes from the reality and realization of the present God who
loves us. I praise God, and have joy in praising him, because of the
Mystery present to me, within me. Too often I fail to allow myself to meet the
Mystery, and yet, its mysterious presence gives me a peace and sense of
totality that helps me to become aware of reality in all of its factors.
His praise manifests his abundance, a banquet of all delight, which in turn
multiplies upon itself deserving ever greater praise.
7 When I think of you upon my bed, through the
night watches I will recall
Is there any greater sweetness than to lie
comforted upon one’s bed praying and being in union with God? What
greater consolation than the protection and presence of the Lamb, to allow him
to hold as you rest?
8 That you indeed are my help, and in the shadow
of your wings I shout for joy.
He has indeed been our help, and this help is
our joy. He has covered us in our weakness, covered us in our nakedness,
and covered us in our shame. In this place of being protected, affirmed,
pitied in our nothingness, we are filled with gratitude and long to give
ourselves totally to the love in which we find ourselves enveloped. We
long to return to our original nakedness (where we can be vulnerable without
shame) and held in intimate embrace.
9 My soul clings fast to you; your right hand
upholds me.
My soul clings to the Lord, and it is by HIM
that I may stand. I am not the source of my own strength. My
Beloved desires to commit himself to that need in which I live. My
constant need allows me to relish in his constancy.
10 But those who seek my life will come to ruin;
they shall go down to the depths of the earth!
Those who seek my life will come to ruin as I am
taken up into his gaze. I know that everything that does not dwell within His
presence shall pass away. “He shall anoint my head with oil in the
presence of my enemies” (Psalm 23). In
clinging to the infinite, my soul shall rejoice in the land of the
living. Those who seek my life, (those without mercy) place
themselves outside of mercy, and will descend to the depths in their folly of
separation.
11 They shall be handed over to the sword and
become the prey of jackals!
A House divided against itself cannot
stand. What then shall become of the human being who is divided
against himself? Without loyalty to himself (his need for God) Man thus
divides himself and makes an enemy of God and himself. Without
secure foundation, they shall be unbalanced and cut themselves with the sword
and tear themselves to pieces.
12 But the king shall rejoice in God;
all who swear by the Lord shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be shut!
They shall exult who trusted in the Lord’s
faithfulness. Those who praise the Lord do not wait for vindication, for
it has already been granted in the gift of faith. They need not
retribution, but rejoice in the coming of the Sun of Justice, exulting in a
mystery beyond all they could have hoped to understand or attain. Christ
has come and lies can be spoken no more. Emptiness has been overturned,
and death has been swallowed up. Those without truth shall have nothing to say,
for no shadows can be cast in the light. Let me desire that all may share in this
faith, to the Glory of God the Father.
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