Psalm 149
Reimagined by Julia Jean in Psalms in Ordinary Voices
Give praise to the Goddess within and without.
Sing unto our Lady a new song
for we shall praise Her with our very presence.
Let the Universe rejoice in Her creations.
Let Her children be joyful as we praise Her names in the Great Dance.
We will play our heart drums and soul strings.
We will pluck the sinews of our skeletons.
We will merge in the Great Rite with equanimity and freedom
in our stomping feet.
For She takes pleasure in Her devotees.
She clothes us in Her radiant jewel strength.
All acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals.
We are joyful in Her glory.
We sing to Her in our beds, our lovemaking in Her honor.
We rejoice in Her edgeless luminosity.
We chant Her names in our waking and our sleeping,
in our nakedness, fertility and death.
We lift Her praises as we whisper, sing, talk, eat, and kiss.
May She enter us with every breath, every motion, and every movement.
May our egos be sacrificed so we know each other more deeply
through her wild compassion.
We humble ourselves so we may know the Truth
and be released from the chains and fetters of illusion.
Then, the glistening radiance of Her wisdom will take us over completely.
When we surrender completely—in Truth—we lose only our smallness,
not our power or our glory.
We step into Her: She of 108 names, 1008 names.
We become One.
We honorably install You in our hearts so that we might know
the deepest truths, so that we might know ourselves as others,
And realize the blazing fires of the non-duality of all existence
and non-existence.
A Meditation on Psalm 149 (Reimagined)
DGJ / Sunday, September 29, 2024
DGJ / Sunday, September 29, 2024
For the Fifth Sunday in Creationtide
1.
It may just be that the deepest truth of all, the most dizzying truth of all, the most liberating truth of all—is right there in your hands. Literally. Inscribed right there in your hands. Weathered by years of hard work, maybe. Toughened by a summer in the garden, maybe. Shaken by worry for a world on the edge, maybe. Even so, it may just be that the deepest truth of all is inscribed, etched, carved right there into your two hands.
So do this for me. Take a moment this morning to trace the veins in your own palms. You’re going to have to set your bulletin aside. Pick a hand. Pick a palm. I’m using my left hand, and my right forefinger to do the tracing.
Just trace those veins, your veins. A few are like valleys, diving from one side to another. Others are like tributaries, branching off one valley or another, doing their own thing. Little wrinkles flowing hither and yon. Follow them around. Go where they lead you.
I want to suggest this morning that all those valleys and tributaries, in your hand, in your palm, are something like a sacred text, embodied scripture, maybe even a palm psalm. You’ve got chapter and verse right there in your flesh. Get it? A palm psalm? And within that sacred text, your sacred text, there is a universe of ancestors, a road map of migrations, and the unmistakable creativity of the Divine—who was long at work in your life before you had a life, who was forever involved in your becoming before you became anything at all. You can do this anytime you like, by the way. Doesn’t have to be at church on Sundays. Trace the veins in your own palms. Read the sacred text there.
There is nothing else, absolutely nothing else you have to do, to please and praise the Maker of all things, the Weaver of all fabrics, the Goddess who made you wonderful and whole. Just be with all this. Just trace the landscape of your life. Just wander the valleys, the tributaries of your own hand. Here’s where Julia Jenn is so provocatively right, so delightfully simple, in her reimagining of the 149th psalm:
Give praise to the Goddess within and without.
Sing unto our Lady a new song
for we shall praise Her with our very presence.
WITH OUR VERY PRESENCE!
Just this: with your very presence! The Goddess’ Gospel, the Gospel of love, is right there in your hand! And all you have to do is touch. And all you have to do is trace. And all you have to do is praise Her with your presence. As you are. Who you are. Because you are. You can praise Her with your very presence because She’s the source of every breath you take. You can praise Her with your presence because She’s the desire that conceived and delivered and raised you up. You can praise Her with your presence because—as you are, just as you are—you are made in Her image. Surrender to that: and you’ve stepped into the greatest mystery there is. Your life.
So I discovered Julia Jean’s reimagined psalm (the psalm Amy’s read for us this morning) in a book called Psalms in Ordinary Voices—a collection inspired and then gathered into one by a couple of pastors in the Berkshires. They’d asked a diverse community of friends—social workers, teachers, therapists, farmworkers, mechanics, Hospice chaplains, grandparents, new moms and more—to read, read, read the psalms, and then to take one and rewrite it for their own voice, their own spiritual practice, their own community. And Julia Jean came up with the 149th.
Give praise to the Goddess within and without.
Sing unto our Lady a new song
for we shall praise Her with our very presence.
And I believe that Julia Jean gets this just right. Her version of the 149th psalm. If God is Creator, if God is ever and always creating, if the Goddess is intimately involved in creation’s endlessly fascinating and forever unpredictable patterns of ecstasy, emergence and evolution, isn’t it wild, isn’t it wonderful, isn’t it wonderfully wild that She makes the human being in Her own image? As God yearns for communion, we yearn for communion and connection. As She rejoices in us, and in all that is and ever will be, we rejoice in Her and in one another and in all that is and ever will be.
And we are designed, created, put together, friends, to do just this: to play our heart drums and soul strings / to pluck the sinews of our skeletons / to merge in the Great Rite with equanimity and freedom in our stomping feet.
1.
So do this for me. Take a moment this morning to trace the veins in your own palms. You’re going to have to set your bulletin aside. Pick a hand. Pick a palm. I’m using my left hand, and my right forefinger to do the tracing.
Just trace those veins, your veins. A few are like valleys, diving from one side to another. Others are like tributaries, branching off one valley or another, doing their own thing. Little wrinkles flowing hither and yon. Follow them around. Go where they lead you.
I want to suggest this morning that all those valleys and tributaries, in your hand, in your palm, are something like a sacred text, embodied scripture, maybe even a palm psalm. You’ve got chapter and verse right there in your flesh. Get it? A palm psalm? And within that sacred text, your sacred text, there is a universe of ancestors, a road map of migrations, and the unmistakable creativity of the Divine—who was long at work in your life before you had a life, who was forever involved in your becoming before you became anything at all. You can do this anytime you like, by the way. Doesn’t have to be at church on Sundays. Trace the veins in your own palms. Read the sacred text there.
There is nothing else, absolutely nothing else you have to do, to please and praise the Maker of all things, the Weaver of all fabrics, the Goddess who made you wonderful and whole. Just be with all this. Just trace the landscape of your life. Just wander the valleys, the tributaries of your own hand. Here’s where Julia Jenn is so provocatively right, so delightfully simple, in her reimagining of the 149th psalm:
Give praise to the Goddess within and without.
Sing unto our Lady a new song
for we shall praise Her with our very presence.
WITH OUR VERY PRESENCE!
Just this: with your very presence! The Goddess’ Gospel, the Gospel of love, is right there in your hand! And all you have to do is touch. And all you have to do is trace. And all you have to do is praise Her with your presence. As you are. Who you are. Because you are. You can praise Her with your very presence because She’s the source of every breath you take. You can praise Her with your presence because She’s the desire that conceived and delivered and raised you up. You can praise Her with your presence because—as you are, just as you are—you are made in Her image. Surrender to that: and you’ve stepped into the greatest mystery there is. Your life.
So I discovered Julia Jean’s reimagined psalm (the psalm Amy’s read for us this morning) in a book called Psalms in Ordinary Voices—a collection inspired and then gathered into one by a couple of pastors in the Berkshires. They’d asked a diverse community of friends—social workers, teachers, therapists, farmworkers, mechanics, Hospice chaplains, grandparents, new moms and more—to read, read, read the psalms, and then to take one and rewrite it for their own voice, their own spiritual practice, their own community. And Julia Jean came up with the 149th.
Give praise to the Goddess within and without.
Sing unto our Lady a new song
for we shall praise Her with our very presence.
And we are designed, created, put together, friends, to do just this: to play our heart drums and soul strings / to pluck the sinews of our skeletons / to merge in the Great Rite with equanimity and freedom in our stomping feet.
I mean, seriously, friends! “Play your heart drums and soul strings!” “Pluck the sinews of your skeletons!” “Merge in the Great Rite with freedom in your stomping feet!” Freedom in your stomping feet! Go ahead, stomp your feet a few times. You can do it. Right here in church! You can do it. That’s you, that’s you and me, that’s us—merging in the Great Rite with equanimity and freedom. No theological cartwheels necessary. No longwinded exhortations needed. Reading scripture written upon our own two hands. Merging in the Great Rite on our own two feet. It’s as simple and as human as that.
Whoever you are, whatever your age, whatever your language, whatever burdens you bear—you are designed to play your heart drums and soul strings; you are made to pluck the sinews of your skeletons. Created in the image of God, but not only that. Created to praise Her with your very presence. With your very presence. So, says Julia Jean:
Let the Universe rejoice in Her creations.
Let Her children be joyful as we praise
Her names in the Great Dance.
2.
It’s our hope that this fall’s Season of Creationtide will inspire a renewed ministry of creation spirituality and ecological activism right here in our church. Going back many years, of course, we have championed eco-justice in important ways, and through varied initiatives. In a sense, it’s in our congregational DNA. Of late, several of you have wondered about reviving this ministry, reimagining a Greening Team, finding new ways to animate earth care and ecological fidelity in and beyond the church. See me, if you’re interested in joining this new (or renewed) effort. I’d like us to get together soon…to see what’s possible for us now.
In Julia Jean’s psalm, I’m struck by the spiritual side of the task that lies before us—as a church, and as a culture too. Does this seem right to you? What’s required of us involves concrete action, of course, and particular initiatives of care and protection for particular places, particular systems of forest and field, sea and sky. But our ministry has to address the soul’s desire, the spirit’s calling, and the spiritual path that offers true conversion, human transformation and lasting hope. “May our egos be sacrificed,” she writes. May our egos be sacrificed so we know each other more deeply through Her wild compassion / May we humble ourselves so we may know the Truth and be released from the chains and fetters of illusion / Then, the glistening radiance of Her wisdom will take us over completely.
There is Good News, my friends, Gospel, in the life and teachings of Jesus, and in the ancient poetry of the Bible; and there is Good News, Gospel, in the rivers that flow out of snow-packed mountains to hydrate and cleanse our human communities; Good News, Gospel, in the fertility of gardens that yield fruits, vegetables, legumes that delight and fortify our families and friends. But that Gospel invites a very particular kind of spiritual practice, a very disciplined kind of human intention, a very engaged kind of community. To fully and lovingly live within the rhythms and graces of creation is also to sacrifice our egos, our pride, our devouring desires—so that we can know each other (and all creation) more deeply through God’s wild compassion. To fully and loving live within the rhythms and graces of creation is also to humble ourselves—through prayer and study, through worship and community conversation—so that we can know the Truth and be released from the chains and fetters of illusion. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says. “Blessed are the humble and meek—for they shall honor and bless the earth.”
This, of course, is not only a Christian truth—but a Jewish, a Muslim, a Buddhist truth, a truth discovered in indigenous traditions across history and around the planet. And every one of these traditions celebrates what Julia Jean celebrates in her psalm: When we surrender completely—in Truth—we lose only our smallness, not our power or our glory. Wow. That’s worth repeating. When we surrender completely—in Truth—we lose only our smallness, not our power or our glory. That kind of surrender has everything to do with communities of earth-centered devotion, wind-powered love and sea-surfing action. That kind of surrender might just release us all from the chains and fetters of 21st century illusion—for collaborative, heartfelt and Godly commitments to the planet and one another. Like seeds, we might be planted in the good earth, in its rhythms and seasons, sown in fields and forests, sown in love. And like seeds, we might rise up from these sweet depths, broken and holy and green, to offer sustenance and hope to one another.
So here’s my question. Can we revive our Greening Ministry, our active, engaged commitment to ecological justice and earth care? And can we revive this ministry in such a way that we devote ourselves at the same time to active, specific initiatives of earth care, and creative, sustaining, humbling spiritual practice? The kind of spiritual practice that speaks truth to our egos, and the culture’s egotism; the kind of spiritual practice that embeds activism in humility and love; the kind of spiritual practice that grounds brave resistance and earth-bound fidelity in prayer, worship and a beloved community like ours. I’m excited to imagine with some of you just this kind of ministry, just this kind of effort: wedding courageous and resilient action with ancient wisdom and timeless spiritual practice. And seeing how the church, and maybe even communities beyond the church, are changed.
3.
I have to confess that seeing Julia Jean’s psalm in print, after we’d run off our copies for this morning’s bulletin—seeing some of this poetry in print caused me to blush just a bit this week. Seriously. Maybe it did the same for you as Amy read it a little earlier. There are one or two Puritans rolling in their Puritan graves this morning. All acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals. OK, that’s kind of tame, beautiful, but tame. We are joyful in Her glory. Again, kind of tame. We sing to Her in our beds, our lovemaking in Her honor. That’s the part. The Puritans rolling in their graves part. We rejoice in Her edgeless luminosity / We chant Her names in our waking and our sleeping, in our nakedness, fertility and death. Wow, wow and wow again.
All too often Christian theology has promoted and even sanctified a kind of dualism that sets earth against spirit, and physicality against eternity, and even human vulnerability against divine promise. Earth, church “fathers” have said over and again, is the realm of sin, to be overcome and defeated by spirit. The physical, they’ve said over and again, is about temptation, and simply a test site for God’s judgment (to see if we’re worthy). And human vulnerability, well, human vulnerability is transient, here today and gone tomorrow, and not to be trusted. Because the real treasure, the real promise is to be found in the world beyond this one. In so many ways, this is the Christianity that’s shaped even the mainline church. The ways we worship. The songs we sing.
But, God bless Julia Jean. This morning, her psalm challenges that very dualism with love, with exuberance and grace, and with Gospel light. To love creation, to embrace our own creativity, to worship the Creator—is to embrace, even dance with spirit, in the midst of the good earth and beneath the great sky and knee deep in the sweet seas of this planet. No dualism there. To care for creation, to immerse ourselves in creation’s rhythms, seasons and pain—is to step into Her: She of 108 names. She of 1008 names.
And as complicated and enormous as the task ahead may be—and it is complicated and it is enormous—the opportunity for the human family is equally precious and profoundly sweet. In opening our hearts to earth’s distress, in listening for the cries of creation, we may well come to know the Goddess in ways that are as close and as intimate as the hands, the veins, the palms before us. In stepping up to climate change, in devoting our religious communities and civic energies to ecological repair and justice, we may well come to install God in our hearts—isn’t this language beautiful!—we may well come to install God in our hearts so that we might know the deepest truths…and realize the blazing fires of the non-duality of all existence and non-existence.
You’re going to have go home this week and mull over that last line. I’m still working on it. What it might mean for me, and for you, and for us, to “realize the blazing fires of the non-duality of all existence and non-existence.” Seriously. Send me a note. Write me an email. I want to know what you come up with.
I have a hunch the psalmist has in mind the Oneness of God, the Reconciling Oneness of the Goddess. That in God there is love and mercy, only love and mercy—and that Her love and mercy is always reconciling the broken and whole, the here and there, the now and forever. In my hand, and in yours, we see Her promise: not some distant promise of a world we will earn with good behavior and frugal saving—but a living promise, a today promise, an earth-bound promise of gardens bursting with vegetables in summer, hillsides blazing with color in fall, and rivers watering the planet with nourishment and grace. That promise, I offer to you now, is all right there in your palm. Check it out. And let me know what you find.
Amen and Ashe!
Whoever you are, whatever your age, whatever your language, whatever burdens you bear—you are designed to play your heart drums and soul strings; you are made to pluck the sinews of your skeletons. Created in the image of God, but not only that. Created to praise Her with your very presence. With your very presence. So, says Julia Jean:
Let the Universe rejoice in Her creations.
Let Her children be joyful as we praise
Her names in the Great Dance.
2.
It’s our hope that this fall’s Season of Creationtide will inspire a renewed ministry of creation spirituality and ecological activism right here in our church. Going back many years, of course, we have championed eco-justice in important ways, and through varied initiatives. In a sense, it’s in our congregational DNA. Of late, several of you have wondered about reviving this ministry, reimagining a Greening Team, finding new ways to animate earth care and ecological fidelity in and beyond the church. See me, if you’re interested in joining this new (or renewed) effort. I’d like us to get together soon…to see what’s possible for us now.
In Julia Jean’s psalm, I’m struck by the spiritual side of the task that lies before us—as a church, and as a culture too. Does this seem right to you? What’s required of us involves concrete action, of course, and particular initiatives of care and protection for particular places, particular systems of forest and field, sea and sky. But our ministry has to address the soul’s desire, the spirit’s calling, and the spiritual path that offers true conversion, human transformation and lasting hope. “May our egos be sacrificed,” she writes. May our egos be sacrificed so we know each other more deeply through Her wild compassion / May we humble ourselves so we may know the Truth and be released from the chains and fetters of illusion / Then, the glistening radiance of Her wisdom will take us over completely.
There is Good News, my friends, Gospel, in the life and teachings of Jesus, and in the ancient poetry of the Bible; and there is Good News, Gospel, in the rivers that flow out of snow-packed mountains to hydrate and cleanse our human communities; Good News, Gospel, in the fertility of gardens that yield fruits, vegetables, legumes that delight and fortify our families and friends. But that Gospel invites a very particular kind of spiritual practice, a very disciplined kind of human intention, a very engaged kind of community. To fully and lovingly live within the rhythms and graces of creation is also to sacrifice our egos, our pride, our devouring desires—so that we can know each other (and all creation) more deeply through God’s wild compassion. To fully and loving live within the rhythms and graces of creation is also to humble ourselves—through prayer and study, through worship and community conversation—so that we can know the Truth and be released from the chains and fetters of illusion. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus says. “Blessed are the humble and meek—for they shall honor and bless the earth.”
This, of course, is not only a Christian truth—but a Jewish, a Muslim, a Buddhist truth, a truth discovered in indigenous traditions across history and around the planet. And every one of these traditions celebrates what Julia Jean celebrates in her psalm: When we surrender completely—in Truth—we lose only our smallness, not our power or our glory. Wow. That’s worth repeating. When we surrender completely—in Truth—we lose only our smallness, not our power or our glory. That kind of surrender has everything to do with communities of earth-centered devotion, wind-powered love and sea-surfing action. That kind of surrender might just release us all from the chains and fetters of 21st century illusion—for collaborative, heartfelt and Godly commitments to the planet and one another. Like seeds, we might be planted in the good earth, in its rhythms and seasons, sown in fields and forests, sown in love. And like seeds, we might rise up from these sweet depths, broken and holy and green, to offer sustenance and hope to one another.
So here’s my question. Can we revive our Greening Ministry, our active, engaged commitment to ecological justice and earth care? And can we revive this ministry in such a way that we devote ourselves at the same time to active, specific initiatives of earth care, and creative, sustaining, humbling spiritual practice? The kind of spiritual practice that speaks truth to our egos, and the culture’s egotism; the kind of spiritual practice that embeds activism in humility and love; the kind of spiritual practice that grounds brave resistance and earth-bound fidelity in prayer, worship and a beloved community like ours. I’m excited to imagine with some of you just this kind of ministry, just this kind of effort: wedding courageous and resilient action with ancient wisdom and timeless spiritual practice. And seeing how the church, and maybe even communities beyond the church, are changed.
3.
I have to confess that seeing Julia Jean’s psalm in print, after we’d run off our copies for this morning’s bulletin—seeing some of this poetry in print caused me to blush just a bit this week. Seriously. Maybe it did the same for you as Amy read it a little earlier. There are one or two Puritans rolling in their Puritan graves this morning. All acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals. OK, that’s kind of tame, beautiful, but tame. We are joyful in Her glory. Again, kind of tame. We sing to Her in our beds, our lovemaking in Her honor. That’s the part. The Puritans rolling in their graves part. We rejoice in Her edgeless luminosity / We chant Her names in our waking and our sleeping, in our nakedness, fertility and death. Wow, wow and wow again.
All too often Christian theology has promoted and even sanctified a kind of dualism that sets earth against spirit, and physicality against eternity, and even human vulnerability against divine promise. Earth, church “fathers” have said over and again, is the realm of sin, to be overcome and defeated by spirit. The physical, they’ve said over and again, is about temptation, and simply a test site for God’s judgment (to see if we’re worthy). And human vulnerability, well, human vulnerability is transient, here today and gone tomorrow, and not to be trusted. Because the real treasure, the real promise is to be found in the world beyond this one. In so many ways, this is the Christianity that’s shaped even the mainline church. The ways we worship. The songs we sing.
But, God bless Julia Jean. This morning, her psalm challenges that very dualism with love, with exuberance and grace, and with Gospel light. To love creation, to embrace our own creativity, to worship the Creator—is to embrace, even dance with spirit, in the midst of the good earth and beneath the great sky and knee deep in the sweet seas of this planet. No dualism there. To care for creation, to immerse ourselves in creation’s rhythms, seasons and pain—is to step into Her: She of 108 names. She of 1008 names.
And as complicated and enormous as the task ahead may be—and it is complicated and it is enormous—the opportunity for the human family is equally precious and profoundly sweet. In opening our hearts to earth’s distress, in listening for the cries of creation, we may well come to know the Goddess in ways that are as close and as intimate as the hands, the veins, the palms before us. In stepping up to climate change, in devoting our religious communities and civic energies to ecological repair and justice, we may well come to install God in our hearts—isn’t this language beautiful!—we may well come to install God in our hearts so that we might know the deepest truths…and realize the blazing fires of the non-duality of all existence and non-existence.
You’re going to have go home this week and mull over that last line. I’m still working on it. What it might mean for me, and for you, and for us, to “realize the blazing fires of the non-duality of all existence and non-existence.” Seriously. Send me a note. Write me an email. I want to know what you come up with.
I have a hunch the psalmist has in mind the Oneness of God, the Reconciling Oneness of the Goddess. That in God there is love and mercy, only love and mercy—and that Her love and mercy is always reconciling the broken and whole, the here and there, the now and forever. In my hand, and in yours, we see Her promise: not some distant promise of a world we will earn with good behavior and frugal saving—but a living promise, a today promise, an earth-bound promise of gardens bursting with vegetables in summer, hillsides blazing with color in fall, and rivers watering the planet with nourishment and grace. That promise, I offer to you now, is all right there in your palm. Check it out. And let me know what you find.
Amen and Ashe!
