Richard Kuns
My wife and I spent many evenings watching the Olympics. One of the more fascinating events is the 10-meter (32ft 10 in) platform dive. A key to a successful dive is spotting the water quickly once you leave the platform or you are in danger of serious, career ending injury. Plunging into water at 40 mph is dangerous and the water is “hard” if entered wrong. A complete dive takes less than 5 seconds.
I have been told that there is a split-second when the diver can neither see the platform or the water. They are suspended in mid-air without reference to where they have been nor where they are going. A gymnast calls that “getting the twisty”. That sounds like an excellent definition of disorientation and of our collective experiences over the last several months of the pandemic.
Psalm 95 in our Daily Office today speaks to that issue of disorientation in times of stress and fear. (http://satucket.com/lectionary/1Proper14.htm) The Psalm opens in three majestic movements: A call to robustly and joyfully celebrate God; shifting the choreography to bow, kneel, and prostrate ourselves before God; an then a radical, sobering change of tone and pace to focus your attention and listen. God speaks and we must quiet our bodies, our minds, and all other activity to listen, to be attentive. Disconnect, quiet your monkey mind, close your calendar, and listen!
Movement 1: Come let us sing out to God! Let us shout with joy to our Rock of Salvation!
Movement 2: Let us come before our Redeemer with thanks, proclaim with music the Holy Name. Come, let us bow down and humble ourselves. Let us praise the Holy One, our Maker.
Movement 3: Today -- if only they would listen to Your voice. Don’t harden your heart…
(Psalm 95:1, 2, 6, 7c, 8a - Pamela Greenberg)
It is no surprise that this is the first of six psalms our Jewish brothers and sister pray and chant to welcome the Sabbath as the sun sets each Friday evening (Kabbalat Shabbat). You might want to set aside some time, find a quiet space and read aloud all six psalms (95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 29) in sequence. In those moments when you begin to read aloud Psalm 29 the Voice of God rumbles like thunder and lightning and all the people respond “GLORY”! But first you must be quiet!
Our disorientation is created by the multitude of voices clamoring to get our attention. We know that our energies are directed toward the voice that catches and holds our attention, but which voice should we heed.
The voice in the Sinai wilderness said God has failed you; you should have remained in Egypt, enslaved but you had food and water. Yes, God set you free but now you are abandoned. Can God prepare a table in the wilderness…? Can You keep alive the remnant of the people? (Psalm 78:19, 20 - Pamela Greenberg)
The voices that disorient us create dissatisfaction and fear. Buy more; dress better; become more popular; prove your success with the possessions you can gather; work harder and faster; overload your calendar; you are not as good as you think. It is a cacophonous chorus saying “Hear me!”
Sabbath time is difficult and Psalm 95 startles us with the difficulty. Can we actually disconnect and not work for a whole day; shut off computers or cell phones; not check email or Facebook; refrain from any activity that will sabotage your relationship with God and hearing the voice of The One who created time and space, the very breath that gives you life.
When The Heart Is Hard
When the heart is hard and parched,
come upon me with a shower of mercy.
When grace is lost from life,
come with a burst of song.
When tumultuous work raises its din on all sides,
shutting me out from beyond, come to me,
God of silence, with Your peace and rest.
When my beggarly heart sits crouched, shut up in a corner,
break open the door, my God.
When desire blinds the mind with delusion and dust,
O Holy One, come with Your light and Your thunder.
The Heart of God: Prayers of Rabindranath Tagore, Selected and edited by Herbert F. Vetter, Charles E. Tittle, 1997, p 67
Today – if only they would listen to your voice:
Don’t harden your heart, as at Merivah, the Place of Contention,
like the day you tested me in the desert,
when your ancestors put me on trial though they had witnessed my work.
Forty years I remained estranged from that generation,
I said: These are a people of wandering heart. They don’t know my ways.
But even in my anger I promised If only they would come to
place of rest...
Psalm 95:7b-11, The Complete Psalms, Pamela Greenberg