mini-reflection

Psalm 140

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“Keep me from those prone to violence.” (140:5)

I have never felt seriously threatened with physical violence. When I lived in Manhattan, there were a few times that I was walking down a deserted street at night and remember wishing that there were more people around, but that’s the extent of my awareness of the forces of chaos and human evil.There are people who are more attuned to the potential for violent behavior among strangers than I am and who prefer to carry a weapon. I look to law enforcement as my friends and have never felt a desire to own a firearm to protect myself. If that makes me naive, then it is, to borrow a phrase from Paul Ricoeur, a willed naiveté with which I am perfectly content.

Psalm 139

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“You discern my thoughts from afar.” (139:2)

Most people can read thoughts because they are written in our facial expressions and in our tone of voice. People with certain atypical neurological pathways have difficulty reading faces, but often can learn to recognize and understand that which neurotypical people process without conscious thought. Individuals with low or no vision pay more attention to auditory cues than those with typical vision. In normal conversation, it is not so much a trick to discern thoughts as it is a skill that can be developed by learning to pay attention to all aspects of communication.

Psalm 138

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“You overwhelm my soul with strength.” (138:3)

Most people are capable of handling whatever set of challenges they receive. It is not so much that “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle” than it is simply that most of us do what we need to do. We might not have thought that we were capable of handling such a challenge, and in hindsight, we might wonder how we accomplished it. We did it because we had no other choice, and because at any point that we thought we could do no more, we summoned the extra strength to finish the job because we had to.

Psalm 137

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“There we sat down and yes, we wept, as we remembered Zion.” (137:1)

When I am not in Jerusalem and I think about the city, I don’t weep. In my lifetime, Zion only grows more magnificent from visit to visit. But I get a sense of the crushing sadness of the Psalmist when I fly into New York past the 1776 foot spire of One World Trade center. It is a beautifully designed building, but I see the ghosts of the two blocky towers that preceded it. I see the planes crashing and the bodies falling and the glass and metal disintegrating and the and paper showering lower Manhattan. And I cry.

Psalm 136

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“Who took note of us in our degradation” (136:23)

Many years ago, I experienced the loss of a grandfather to whom I was very close. It was the first time I witnessed a human death. For several weeks afterward, I carried a heavy burden of sadness, but friends whom I thought were close either didn’t notice or chose not to address it. One person finally noticed my sadness and remarked on it, giving me the chance to offload my emotional baggage. It felt good to know that someone cared enough to take note of my demeanor and ask if I was OK. My mental state immediately improved.