Psalm 104

This is not, you might have noticed, a daily blog. As it happens, there is a ridiculous amount of reading in seminary. No, really. And despite my bazillion years of therapy, as it happens, I’m having a ridiculous number of feelings. As Carrie Fisher might say, it’s a veritable feeling festival, lead by a parade of less friendly feelings. You know the ones: that wincing self-loathing with a dash of rage, a touch of alienation and just a soupçon of paralyzing fear.

Of course, there is also a big chuck of startled wonder and quite a lot of peace and joy.

Today, I had more of the first set than the second, but I’d really rather write about Psalm 104. One, because I get so bored by my self-obsession and two, because it’s really a good psalm.

This isn’t going to be the big gay psalm blog (and later, when I can fill at least two twinkies with my biblical knowledge, I’m sure I’ll write about more academic things), but for me, the psalms are kind of an entry point into scripture. The first time, I went through and read them over the course of a week or so (there are only 150 and they are fairly short).

I was about midway through and the thing that struck me the most was how connected I felt to a sprawling humanity that stretched back three thousand years. I’ve heard other people say this since then, but it seemed so beautiful that people a zillion years ago struggled with similar feelings and experiences and expressed those feelings in poetry that praised their god and sang to the wonder in the universe.

Psalm 104 would be the best psalm to make into a children’s book. I’m sure someone’s already done it. It lays out how the poet imagines god created the world and its critters.

A few of my favorite lines: “You stretch out the heavens like a tent/you set the beams of your chambers on the waters/…you make the winds your messengers/fire and flame your ministers.”

Or my favorite: “Yonder is the sea, great and wide,/creeping things innumerable are here,/living things both small and great./There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.”

I love that the poet imagines that god created leviathans just to play in the ocean.

The other thing that I love is that when I look at this poem – describing this fragile, beautiful place – I experience no t just a sense of peace and connection, but I also experience it as a call to action to take better care of the world. Not in that nagging, oh-I-better-recycle-and-buy-a-prius way (though that’s good too), but in this kind of attention to the outside world way.

This path for me is a gentle and firm push towards becoming more responsible and aware of things outside of my brain.

I am not motivated to action because “I should do X” but “I want to do X” out of love for this world and its sporting leviathans.