It has been said that Psalm 63 contains the most warm and intimate expressions of human love for God in the entire Psalter. This no-frills, cliff-hanging monastery may have something to teach us about a later verse.
Verse 1: What a lovely image, "My soul is thirsting for God." We know what a powerful thing thirst is. Thank God we live in a water rich part of the world. Can I name a time in my life or some personal experience when I felt a great thirst for God. Maybe the psalmist composed this psalm while in the desert as he uses the words dry and wearying. Ever felt an inner thirst for God out of a dreary and waterless time?
Verse 2: The word "gaze" sums up the psalmist's experience in the temple. Gazing is silent and interior. He's not singing, not studying, not listening to a sermon - just looking. It is said of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha that "She prayed more with her eyes than with her lips." Some of us are so conditioned to prayer as words, we might have trouble understanding Kateri's method or accepting it as legitimate for ourselves.
Verse 3: God's loving-kindness is better than life. We are each born of God's creative love: a thought of God, a breath of God. And I exist to live in and out of that understanding and to extol God, honor and praise God!
Verse 4: "I will lift up my hands." Better yet, "Lift up your hearts," we say at Mass. Some people go through their entire religious lives never having really lifted up their hearts. They might subscribe to the Vatican newspaper, make Holy Hours and have nuns and priests in the family and still go to their graves without every having lifted up their hearts. A lifted up heart holds felt need: the felt need to praise, to thank, to love, to know and experience God more deeply.
Verse 5: "...a song of joy on my lips..." C.S. Lewis says "There's no such thing as a sad Christian." Often the world's poorest people understand this the best. How did the world ever get the idea that to follow Christ leaves one dour, miserable and humorless? O Jesus, make us glad!
Verse 6: The psalmist says, "Even if I'm wide awake in the middle of the night, I want to be awake to God who holds me up, sustains, encourages, directs and urges me on."
Verse 7: The mother bird spreads her wings over the desert nest, creating a shade umbrella to protect her vulnerable chicks. God is like that.
Verse 8: Here it is, "My heart clings to you." I want to hang onto every word of Christ, every action, every thought of Christ. Knowing first hand the vulnerability we experience living on this planet, I want to cling to Christ the rock, the way this no-frills monastery at the top of the page hangs on. Wouldn't it be a shame if a young fellow signed on with this monastery and never made that heart-connection, but settled for the negative desire just to escape a "wicked" world.
Verses 9 and 10: The psalmist can't help himself. He can't finish his song without lapsing into a self-pitying lament about how his enemies are treating him. He asks God to take care of them with a sword and to let jackals eat them. We have to stop looking for the enemy outside ourselves. Turn the verse on yourself - the enemy within. That is, whatever wants to take you down: pride, self-will, money-lust, the panoply of little gods before which we burn the incense of emotion. Be brave!
Verse 11: Now he seems to have quickly come to his senses, returning to the praise of God. "I'll join the king and rejoice in God." Then the psalmist offers one last thought: God really doesn't like lies. Some of us fuss a great deal about the tiny lies we call "white" - telling a friend his sock, tie and shirt color combinations work well, or her hair is lovely, or the charred food is fine. I don't think those are the lies God detests, but the big deal lies that come from the top, and which leave people less protected, less secure, less healthy. Those lies really get God worked up.
