Here is a Carthusian monk standing above the Grand Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps. There are not many Carthusians in the world; their 11th century hermit-life is rigorous. Maybe this monk has been awake through the night singing psalms and now has gone up to "awake the dawn." We can join him in this psalm-prayer.
Verses 1-3: The psalmist begins by proclaiming his heart-readiness as his life-disposition. He's so moved by the love of God, he's going to sing about it. In the movie, A Trip To Bountiful, elderly Carrie Watts lives in a small Houston apartment with her son, Ludie and chronically irritated daughter-in-law Jessie Mae. Carrie loves to sing hymns, which annoys Jessie Mae no end. "No hymn singing," Jessie Mae calls out from the other room when Carrie starts, We shall gather at the river. "You know how hymn singing makes me nervous." Do you ever sing hymns while you're working alone?
Then we hear the word awake, three times in three lines. "Awake my soul; awake lyre and harp; I will awake the dawn." Jesus knew these psalm verses and often asks his disciples to wake up. Not a few Christians are in a kind of spiritual coma. They show up, never miss a Mass, go through the motions, maybe they can quote some popes and saints, remember a catechism line or two, say some prayers, but their inner lives are slumbering. They have no knowledge of God and themselves from experience, only what others have told them. Not the same thing. Do you ever have a sense of knowing something of God because you've experienced it? Someone might tell you to distrust that sense or knowing, but that's more likely because they're afraid of losing control over your inner life. Some things are best kept secret — like the Carthusian monk with his own senses, watching for the dawn's awakening.
Verses 4-6: Now the psalmist jumps from praise to thanks. Oh, I forget who said this, but, "If the only word you ever say to God is thank you...." you're onto it. He's thanking God for God's love which is for all the nations and all the peoples - God's love (which is God's truth) is so vast it's above the skies. Maybe what we'd call outer space. And when he asks that God's glory would shine on earth, does he have in mind the beauty of the temple? Better yet, God's brightness shining through human lives lived well.
Verses 7-11: As is often the case, there is a sudden shift from praise and thanks to complaint and petition as he recites these verses containing mysterious place-names: Shechem, Succoth, Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah, Moab, Edom, the Philistines. What are we to make of this? Some of these names reflect that the kingdom had been divided up. Others are the names of enemies. So, perhaps it is all a poetic way of say that God is Lord — Lord of love over all even in our divisions, disputes, challenges, upsets.
Verse 12-14: Oh, here it is again, (how tiresome) asking God to march with our armies. There are clergy who still bless arsenals, soldiers, fighter jets and ships. We really have to grow up spiritually and put all of that away. If there's a battle, it's interior, in one's own inner place. Hatred and resentment are always looking for a way in. That's the enemy. And while we "wake the dawn" we might also be wide awake to that inner invasion, and stop saying, "Oh, I don't hate anyone." Hmm, maybe in our time and place, the other really dangerous spiritual enemy is the nation's depraved indifference.
Anyway, true to form, the psalmist ends on a bright note — "With God we shall do bravely." Or perhaps the monk is thinking of another psalm - Psalm 29, verse 6b, "At night there are tears, but joy comes with dawn."
