Those who dwell in the shelter of
the Most High
and abide in the shade of the
Almighty
say to the Lord, “My refuge,
my stronghold, my God in whom I trust!”
Now that we
have generally toured the Psalms for four Fridays, it seemed to me that we
might have another look at one of the best-known and loved Psalms, 91.
In the first two lines we have words that could well alert any
contemplative… dwell, abide. Part of this Psalm is about dwelling,
abiding, and another part is about journeying, moving on. Whether we stay, or whether we go, it is
under the wings, the shade, the protection, of the Most High.
It is God who will free you from
the snare of the fowler who seeks to destroy you;
God will conceal you with his
pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge.
You will not fear the terror of
the night nor the arrow that flies by day,
Nor the plague that prowls in the
darkness nor the scourge that lays waste at noon.
A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right,
You, it will never approach;
God’s faithfulness is a buckler and shield…
Upon you no evil shall fall, no
plague approach where you dwell.
For you God has commanded the
angels to keep you in all your ways.
They shall bear you upon their
hands lest you strike your foot against a stone.
On the lion and the viper you will tread and
trample the young lion and the dragon…
…it is a
torrent of reassurance. Of course in many
senses life and the world are simply not so.
Good people do get wounded and struck down, really bad people often
thrive. And yet for anyone of quiet
faith and prayer there is an important reality here. The poet, the Psalmist, is not singing of
some dream world, some convenient Never-Neverland in which nothing bad ever
happens. The Psalmist knows very well,
probably in his own life and family and tribe, that you can never ensure the
future, you can never assume you are safe from adversity. For many people the lion and the viper, so to
speak, are old friends – to say nothing of the terror of the night or the
scourge that lays waste at midday. But
there is a part of us that is outside the reach of evil and adversity. The contemplative task is very much to bring
us into touch with that central spring, even if only in glimpses. The Hebrew poet who wrote the Book of Job has
Job saying, Though he slay me, yet will I
trust him [Job 13:15].
I don’t
write about any of this lightly or glibly, I hope. There remains plenty of mystery. I have no idea what to say about the
affliction of senility and the onset of confusion, of which we are hearing more
and more – except to observe that it compels us to care for each other. And there is something about children being
made to suffer, especially from other people’s neglect, stupidity and violence,
which fills me with incoherent fury and dismay.
But God, says the poet, has commanded his angels… We need to rescue angels from the Sunday
school picture books and the great paintings that depict dreamy personages with
wings. The word angels means messengers. If we become aware of something true and new,
something healing and loving, some new light or creative possibility, some hope
against hope, we can say that God has commanded his angels. In Celtic spirituality there is not much
doubt about angels – they are part of daily awareness, and they convey God’s
love and new creation.
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