Feature Article
Personal Psalms
by Katie DiFelice
My husband and I have been reading Leap Over a Wall, Eugene Peterson's
story of David's life. A chapter on grief brought some events of the
recent past into focus for us, or at least helped us accept some of the
residual emotions that spring to life every so often. Peterson
describes how David commanded the priests to teach the sons of Judah
the "song of the bow," the lament over the death of Saul and Jonathan
(2 Samuel 1:19-27). An era was over, and a new one was beginning, but
the men and the path that led to that day should not be forgotten. In
grief, David penned this poem about his adversary and his friend.
"A failure to lament is a failure to connect," writes Peterson. "If we refuse to learn Davidic lamentation, our lives fragment into episodes and anecdotes, a succession of jerky starts. . . . Pain entered into, accepted, and owned can become poetry. It's no less pain, but it's no longer ugly. Poetry is our most personal use of words; it's our way of entering experience, not just watching it happen to us, and inhabiting it as our home."
I have pages in my journal of just such laments. One day I came to Psalm 57 in my quiet time. Just as I was about to move on, the Lord led my attention to the description of the psalm: "For the choir director; a Mikhtam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave." David journaled this experience and allowed it to be sung in the presence of the congregation as a remembrance of that day and of the faithfulness of God.
We tend to want to forget pain and go straight to the victory, the lessons learned, the resolution of the issues. I wondered how David felt sitting there hearing this event sung by the choir. Here are my reflections as God held my attention to the phrases that put David's pain and this psalm in context.
I imagine David sitting in the temple congregation when the song is to be sung by the choir. Perhaps he has even requested it to be sung this day. Calmly he sits, robed and crowned, elevated above the throng, visible to all. He sits with eyes straight ahead or perhaps closed. Because he remembers the scene, he recalls the fear in his stomach, he relives the emotional confusion of yet another attack by "the Lord's anointed." Publicly he allows his personal grief to be sung. He has not swept this under the carpet now that he occupies the throne. The choir publicly harmonizes what was (is) such discordant emotion of this private soul.
And perhaps this is the meaning. To not speak of the grief, fear, loss only leaves it in the black depths of disharmony. To proclaim the events, though ever so painful in memory as if they happened today, and search for the meaning God intends them to have--this is the power to diffuse the pain and bring understanding. There is a reconciling with reality
. . . a road that must be remembered.
Take time to remember the journey. Don't just go from one event to the next without reflection. The road is not random. "He knows the way I take" (Job 23:10).
I concluded with a promise to write my own psalm, my own lamentation, and to deal with those residual emotions more gently. I have friends who have helped me phrase and edit that psalm along the way from grief to understanding. They have been my "congregation." They have been faithful to not edit out the ugly stuff, to not rush me to the end of the poem, to the praises, before the discordant lines find their rhythm.
I am still in process. The praises are becoming more evident as the crescendo at the end. Someday, God may have me sing this psalm to encourage someone in her lamenting, or just to remember His faithfulness in the variable realities of life.
Eugene Peterson concludes, "Being in a story means that we mustn't attempt to get ahead of the plot--skip the hard parts, erase the painful parts, detour the disappointments. . . . God is telling this story, remember. It's a large, capacious story. He doesn't look kindly on our editorial deletions. But He delights in our poetry."
Katie and Kevin DiFelice live in Colorado Springs and minister with the Collegiate Ministry of The Navigators. They have three children--Kristen, Matthew, and Michael--and will become "empty nesters" when Michael leaves for college next year.
by Katie DiFelice
My husband and I have been reading Leap Over a Wall, Eugene Peterson's
story of David's life. A chapter on grief brought some events of the
recent past into focus for us, or at least helped us accept some of the
residual emotions that spring to life every so often. Peterson
describes how David commanded the priests to teach the sons of Judah
the "song of the bow," the lament over the death of Saul and Jonathan
(2 Samuel 1:19-27). An era was over, and a new one was beginning, but
the men and the path that led to that day should not be forgotten. In
grief, David penned this poem about his adversary and his friend."A failure to lament is a failure to connect," writes Peterson. "If we refuse to learn Davidic lamentation, our lives fragment into episodes and anecdotes, a succession of jerky starts. . . . Pain entered into, accepted, and owned can become poetry. It's no less pain, but it's no longer ugly. Poetry is our most personal use of words; it's our way of entering experience, not just watching it happen to us, and inhabiting it as our home."
I have pages in my journal of just such laments. One day I came to Psalm 57 in my quiet time. Just as I was about to move on, the Lord led my attention to the description of the psalm: "For the choir director; a Mikhtam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave." David journaled this experience and allowed it to be sung in the presence of the congregation as a remembrance of that day and of the faithfulness of God.
We tend to want to forget pain and go straight to the victory, the lessons learned, the resolution of the issues. I wondered how David felt sitting there hearing this event sung by the choir. Here are my reflections as God held my attention to the phrases that put David's pain and this psalm in context.
I imagine David sitting in the temple congregation when the song is to be sung by the choir. Perhaps he has even requested it to be sung this day. Calmly he sits, robed and crowned, elevated above the throng, visible to all. He sits with eyes straight ahead or perhaps closed. Because he remembers the scene, he recalls the fear in his stomach, he relives the emotional confusion of yet another attack by "the Lord's anointed." Publicly he allows his personal grief to be sung. He has not swept this under the carpet now that he occupies the throne. The choir publicly harmonizes what was (is) such discordant emotion of this private soul.
And perhaps this is the meaning. To not speak of the grief, fear, loss only leaves it in the black depths of disharmony. To proclaim the events, though ever so painful in memory as if they happened today, and search for the meaning God intends them to have--this is the power to diffuse the pain and bring understanding. There is a reconciling with reality
. . . a road that must be remembered.
Take time to remember the journey. Don't just go from one event to the next without reflection. The road is not random. "He knows the way I take" (Job 23:10).
I concluded with a promise to write my own psalm, my own lamentation, and to deal with those residual emotions more gently. I have friends who have helped me phrase and edit that psalm along the way from grief to understanding. They have been my "congregation." They have been faithful to not edit out the ugly stuff, to not rush me to the end of the poem, to the praises, before the discordant lines find their rhythm.
I am still in process. The praises are becoming more evident as the crescendo at the end. Someday, God may have me sing this psalm to encourage someone in her lamenting, or just to remember His faithfulness in the variable realities of life.
Eugene Peterson concludes, "Being in a story means that we mustn't attempt to get ahead of the plot--skip the hard parts, erase the painful parts, detour the disappointments. . . . God is telling this story, remember. It's a large, capacious story. He doesn't look kindly on our editorial deletions. But He delights in our poetry."
Katie and Kevin DiFelice live in Colorado Springs and minister with the Collegiate Ministry of The Navigators. They have three children--Kristen, Matthew, and Michael--and will become "empty nesters" when Michael leaves for college next year.