the spaciousness of the psalms

indeed the world is a dangerous, frightening place, and i am upset for myself. ~walter brueggemann, praying the psalms

summertime left me with no time to write, not to mention the fact that my darling, beautiful children sucked the very will to live from me there toward the end. (i picture them behind the closed door of their room, high-fiveing each other and whispering, "yes! mission accomplished!") devious little stinkers.

but then the boys started back to school, and still i found myself unable to write anything on this little blog or anywhere else. the writing well has been dry, so very, very dry. i began shrugging my shoulders and saying to myself, "well, it was a good run. i enjoyed having a blog and doing a little writing while it lasted, but the gig is up." and then i progressed to thoughts on how self-indulgent my blog was and how narcissistic we all are as a culture to be posting our thoughts on the world wide web, as if. . . (some of that is true, but what's with the cynicism?)

i ruminated on annie dillard's question of what could you write to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality. i kept coming up empty. i got nothin.

until yesterday. i was reading walter brueggemann on praying the psalms, and i realized that at some point along the way, i'd begun to dismiss the questions and struggles of my own life and heart as trivial compared to the rest of the world's issues.

constant war, hunger, violence, millions of children around the world and in our own country trapped in sex slavery, the aids epidemic and the wake of orphaned children it leaves behind, unspeakable suffering everywhere i turn. in my lovely, wealthy city alone, there is a twenty-five percent poverty rate. twenty-five percent! i see homeless people around town almost everyday. and then there's the little boy down the street, who is now in foster care while his mom is in jail awaiting trial. it's all just too, too much.

what right do i have to wrestle with life? i have a wonderful husband, two great kids, good friends, a beautiful home, more than enough food, and i've just recently had a dream of mine come true: we were able to finish out our basement and turn some of the space into an office for me to meet with people for spiritual direction. i've been dreaming of this for years, and now it's a reality. so how dare i enrage the suffering world by my triviality?

the beauty of the psalms, though, is that they encompass, in their generous language, all of life and allow us--no, require us--to enter into our humanness with honesty wherever we find ourselves. all i had succeeded in doing by comparing my life with others (such a futile act anyway) was to start shutting down, pulling the plug on real engagement with life, with my heart, and with God. When I start to minimize and dismiss the questions of my own heart, then I am going to miss out on learning how to live the life God has given me with passion, with integrity, and with authenticity. (are we still allowed to use that word?) i am going to miss out on deeper intimacy with God and with the people around me, and i am going to become a small-souled kind of woman.

instead of shutting down, the psalms invite me to wrestle with the confusing realities of this world, to lament the atrocities that so many suffer, to question why not me?, and to also lament the fact that i, too, am in exile here, that i don't really know how to love or be loved, that i feel lost and alone and confused a good bit of the time.

the psalms also give room for celebration and joy, so i am going to repent of shutting down by celebrating my recent dream come true. i love, love, LOVE my new little office space, and i often find myself just sitting here in the basement with a full heart, so grateful for this quiet space and anticipating good things to come.