This fall, I’m writing short poems inspired by the Psalms. Here are Ps 30 and Ps 42, along with pieces based on these two by other poets and a composer.
Ps 30
I praise you God for renewing my life. When I cried in despair, you were there. Tears and fears, tossing at night, turn to joy by morning. When I felt self-secure and questioned your care, I stumbled. Then begged for grace and mercy. You make each day a chance to dance.
Ps 42
I thirst for God. My whole being, parched from crying. I pour out my soul, but still feel heavy. Worship with others, yet feel alone. Bent over from the weight of hope, hoarse from heaving salty tears. The depths and cracks in my spirit start to perceive your presence; in these tender and broken places I come to know your healing love.
“Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one’s heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with [God], whether the heart is full or empty.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible, trans. James H. Burtness
Psalm 30: XXX Exaltabo te, Domine
by Malcolm Guite1
He gives us too, a voice to sing his praises, So much the more because we were brought low That we might know we have a God who raises Up the lowly. Our old riches made us slow To love you, slow to turn to you in praise But sudden loss and crisis made us know Our true dependence on your love. Our days Of false security are gone. We fell Into a pit of our own making. Raise Us up again, each out of our own hell, And give us oil for ashes, joy for mourning. Restore us in your love and we will tell Of how through our long night we heard your warning And heeded you, and found your love again, How night withdrew and joy came in the morning.
Instead—musings on Psalm 42
by Muriel Nelson2
If Herbert Howells hadn’t held a tune in his ear as bombs kept falling on London, if he hadn’t argued with himself—like or as?—and come up with a tie (both), if he hadn’t let his melody make more of his awkward choice than the psalmist’s point, we wouldn’t have the flowing rhythm of “Like as the Hart” to carry us now, or occasion for our choir to stop rehearsing and hear a pastor muse that the ancients followed the hart (the heart) which could sense unseen water (a diviner) and lead a thirsty soul in hopes for a spring into graceful deerlike ways of lifelong longing.
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From David’s Crown: Sounding the Psalms (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2021).
Published in The Christian Century in the July 14, 2021 issue.