So, I packed up my things and took off two days early to get a glimpse of Kentucky. I really didn’t have too much of a plan for the weekend. I thought it would be cool to see a distillery or a horse farm. I knew I wanted to see my buddy Jeff Eaton. Outside of that…I didn’t make any plans. If you know me, free-flowing trips are not my style. Once, when driving from Belton, TX to Los Angeles, I tracked every Christian radio station and made a map for us so we would know where to find the next station.
When I left for Kentucky I started feeling some pangs of
guilt. I hadn’t taken a real “vacation” in years. Usually travel had been
reserved for family and weddings. And this was going to be the first of two
vacations in back-to-back months, so I felt uncomfortable. But I had four
things in a matter of 24 hours that confirmed I was where I needed to be. In
brief: there was a Whataburger…outside of Texas on my driving path. Second,
though I saw no graffiti at all the entire trip, a couple of miles before the
monastery someone had spray painted my initials on a bridge. Third, as I
settled into the campground (Elkhorn Creek Campground) I stayed Saturday night,
I pulled out my old faithful Walt Whitman anthology. The next poem read: A
Kentuckian walking the vale of the Elkhorn in my deerskin leggings. The fourth
was, my buddy Jeff and his church provided an amazing hotel room for me, and a
member of his congregation gave me a little pocket change to thank me for
helping him finish his DMin degree.
All-in-all, I took
it as confirmation I was where I needed to be.
When I got to
Gethsemani, I felt a bit disoriented. I didn’t know where to check in. I got
there too early. I didn’t understand the schedule. There were all of these
things that just weren’t making sense. I had plans for how I was going to spend
my time, but made them before I ever knew the layout and schedule of the
monastery. So…I had to change.
Sometime on the
first day I decided what I needed to do was “keep the hours.” For those of you
who understand monastic lifestyle, you may know what that means. For those of
you who think of monks and nuns as those quirky people dressed in funny robes
(which could include people of the former group as well) keeping the hours
meant I was going to attend each of the prayer services every day. Here was
what that schedule looked like:
3:15 am Vigils
5:45 am Lauds
7:30 am Terce
12:15 pm Sext
2:15 pm None
5:30 pm Vespers
7:30 pm Compline
In addition to the
normal hours, there were also two more services you could attend. They were
Eucharist at 6:15am and the Rosary at 7:00pm. As a Protestant I attended, but
did not partake of the Eucharist, and generally did not attend the Rosary. But
the rest…I kept the hours. And it was good for me. I threw aside my plans and
decided that in the morning, between Terce and Sext I would hike, generally
about 6-7 miles. Always getting lost. Most of the time convinced I would be
murdered by snakes. Between None and Vespers I set aside specific time to
study.5:45 am Lauds
7:30 am Terce
12:15 pm Sext
2:15 pm None
5:30 pm Vespers
7:30 pm Compline
And perhaps it was
the intentionality of the monastic life, or perhaps it was through the reading
I did, but I just became convinced that life with God starts in the Psalter.
The monks of Gethsemani pray and sing through the Psalter twice a month. And
some of these Psalms were sung five days a week. So, I started to read the
Psalms at the monastery. When I got home I made a calendar of what days to read
what Psalms. Sure, I could have gone with the old stand by five Psalms a day,
but I knew that meant some long days and some lean days. I wanted a little more
consistency. So I did some math and came up with the number 83. I needed to
read about 83 verses a day. I started grouping the Psalms in order stopping
when the number hit around 83. Then I started reading Peterson’s A Long
Obedience and it dawned on me…some Psalms are family. Specifically the Psalms
of Ascent (120-134) belong to one another. So, I made some more adjustments.
But what I realized
was for me, and I would assume for most others, the Psalms are our lifeblood.
The Psalms are the dirt and vegetation of life. They are what keep us rooted to
faith being more than a rational, academic exercise. The Psalms remind us that
Christianity (I won’t speak for other faiths that use the Psalms) is about
humanity…it is lived…it is breathed.
The Psalms remind us
that we can be pissed off about injustice and still calm our soul in worship to
God. The Psalms remind us that even in depression there is consolation. They
tell us that from before we are born until we die there is both faithfulness
from and to God. The Psalms are our lives written by men and women long ago who
understood that the width and breadth and height of all that encompasses this
thing called human life is a part of the game. Piety is not merely contented,
contained love that can be mastered.
The Psalms aren’t
simple poetry that we should fawn over. They are lived theology…for better or
worse. And we can’t dismiss their emotive nature when establishing our own
beliefs. The God who thunders from the mountains is still the God that is sung
about in the Psalms. The people of God who sung their history is still the people
who made up the early Christian Church. And so, though I know I need to look at
Paul’s writings, and understand our two creation myths in Genesis; though
Deborah leading her people and Peter correcting false teachings are important;
these things just do not provide the backbone.
The Psalms provide
us an opportunity to realize our humanity is not a hindrance to our faith.
There are things in us that will be tempered, things that need to be
disciplined, but God is not shaken by our anger, our mushy love or our poetic
expressions that try to capture our experience. The Psalms give us permission
to be human. And I think, at least for me, that was a message that I didn’t
always understand. My humanity is part and parcel to growing in faith through
love. And the Psalms encourage me in that.
And that is why I
read the Psalter.
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