JOURNAL ~ PsalmsMuestra

NOTHING BUT DARKNESS - Day 1

A 4th-Century Church Father by the name of St. Athanasius famously said: “Most of Scripture speaks to us; the Psalms speak for us.” This is what makes the book of Psalms unique, because for the most part the words in them are directed toward God—thus they speak for us. That is why, for centuries, the Psalms have been the prayerbook of the faithful seeking intimacy with God. You don't know what to say to God? Look to the Psalms, and you would be surprised to find that you can say just about anything to God.

Most of the Psalms contained in the collection have a pattern known as “orientation—disorientation—reorientation”; that is, the prayer spoken by the psalter begins with a sense orientation, i.e., acknowledging the lordship of Yahweh.  It is followed by declaring the sense of disorientation the psalter faces, either through a plea or a cry for help. It ends with a sense of reorientation, e.g., a hopeful statement declaring confidence in God's faithfulness, or some kind of exclamation of praise - this happens whether or not the cause of disorientation is gone.

One psalm - Psalm 88 - is an exception. This is possibly the most difficult of the Psalms, and arguably the darkest. The Psalm begins with orientation. It continues and ends with disorientation. The lack of any hopeful statement gives this Psalm an especially dark and tragic character. On the one hand, this Psalm is depressing. The reality of the abandonment by God spoken in this Psalm is disturbing. On the other hand, it is encouraging that the psalter faces the reality of overwhelming abandonment, and yet this does not make prayer impossible.

Some commentators suggest that the Psalm resonates with the experience of severe illness, Alzheimer's disease, or mental illness in which one is reflecting a life that is collapsing into chaos. What makes this extraordinary is that despite the chaos, the person still prays. Therefore, the Psalm is an expression of extraordinary faith. One saint I have the wonderful privilege of knowing once said “I don't need to know ‘why,’ as long as I know the One who knows “why.’”