A REFLECTION ON PSALM 29
THE FIRST SUNDAY IN THE SEASON OF EPIPHANY
(NB: A brief note of explanation of some of the words used below follows this reflection)
“The least common denominator of nature: land and sky”. This is the image with which W.O. Mitchell opens his iconic Canadian novel, “Who Has Seen the Wind”, the story of a young boy coming to awareness on the Canadian Prairies. Simple, spare, essential, and so accurate and compelling a description. I see that sky from the 4th floor window of our new apartment, watching the sunrise breaking above and beyond the snow-comfortered roofs stretched out below me and the ragged fringe of treetops that bring texture to this little prairie town.
Although I was born and came to awareness on BCs West Coast and Vancouver Island and am grateful for the way such a beginning informed me I read Mitchells novel as a teenager and it so stirred something deep within me that when circumstances seemingly unwittingly led me to a ministry on the Prairies early in my career, my soul discovered it was home.
Tammy and I make our home now (and again after many years away) in Stonewall, Manitoba, a town located on ancestral lands, on Treaty 1 territory, on the traditional territory of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene Peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. Now, with its very European-Canadian name and official-if-artificial boundaries, Stonewall is also located on the lands of the Red River Settlers, of whom Tammy is a direct descendent, and upon the lands of immigrant and refugee peoples and cultures from every quarter of the globe as the world turns and time unfolds. I live in gratitude and awe of the beauty and bounty of this land and how it has welcomed and sustained each and all of the many creatures and peoples and cultures that have wandered over it and called it home across eons of time. I live repentant for the damage done to the land and its creatures and its peoples by my ancestors and contemporaries and, in the spirit of true repentance, I live committed to doing what I can be it ever so small in the scheme of things to help redress the consequences of past damage. We live now, as well, in a time of pestilence and climate crisis and I wonder if the spirit of the land knows what it needs and is intuitively seeking its own redress.
Here is how one ancient writer and others more recent have given expression to that spirit:
The voice of Love is upon the waters: Manitou’s voice echoes over the oceans and seas, over the lakes and rivers.
The voice of Love is upon the land: Manitou’s voice echoes over the mountains and plains, inflaming the horizon at sunrise and sunset.
The voice of Love breaks the bonds of oppression, shatters the chains of injustice.
Manitou invites us all to join the dance of freedom, to sing the Beloved’s song of truth.
Nan C. Merrill, in her wonderful volume, Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness (Continuum 2002), freely renders the ancient Hebrew Psalms to lead us into reflection and reverence in our times. In turn (may I be forgiven!), I have freely rendered even further her rendering of parts of Psalm 29. To me the psalm, in its original form and its subsequent renderings, is a cry from the Creator calling us all to Reverence, Repentance, and Redress.
It is the beginning of a new year, a symbolic time and, in keeping with Epiphany, perhaps a kairos moment, when we can intentionally make a new start and name particular intentions to guide us forward individually and as a community, nudging us off the path we have been following onto a slightly divergent path that, hopefully, will lead us to a different, truer, and more just destination. Each of you will read this from the lands on which you live and move and have your being, lands with their own beauty and bounty, with their own history and legacy of great accomplishments and sordid wrongdoings. I wonder how the voice of the Creator might be calling each of us in our own places to Reverence, Repentance, and Redress where we live.
Note:
MANITOBA: Giving credit where credit is due, Google tells me that Manitou is the name given to the spiritual and fundamental life force among Algonquian groups of the indigenous peoples of this land. Such a life force is omnipresent and manifests everywhere: in organisms, in the environment, in events, and in all things and happenings. The ‘ba’ part of the name is thought to refer to the narrowing of Lake Manitoba one of the significant geographical features of this territory, so that the name, manitou-ba, roughly translated into English means something like the narrows of the Great Spirit To my ear and soul and heritage, all this has a Celtic feel about it as well. Oh, and by the way, the cat in the photo is not ours; this is an image also provided by our omnipresent assistant, Google.
EPIPHANY: From my studies in English lit, I learned that an epiphany is an experience of sudden awareness and deeper realization an aha moment. In Christian circles, the word is used to speak of the moment of realization of his identity and destiny that came to Jesus at his baptism and of the new awareness that came to the Magi (wise men) when they recognized the significance of the child Jesus they had journeyed to find and how they left different from how they arrived.
KAIROS: From my studies in seminary, I learned that kairos is a Greek word for time, with the implication of timely; when external circumstances and (individually or collectively) our inner readiness align so that we can take action that is appropriate and transformative an opportune moment.
