More often than not, the one hundred and fifty psalms in the Hebrew Scriptures are attributed to King David. Maybe. But even though the word psalm means praises on a stringed instrument, they are often long, whiney laments about un-named troubles (maybe bad health) or requests to seek divine vengeance upon troublemakers and unholy people. Often the psalmist wallows in self-pity and only in the last moment does he seem to snap out of his misery long enough to praise God.
For 2000 plus years we've been praying somone else's words. Nothing wrong with that but maybe it's past time we started composing our own psalms. What about it? I'd suggest we wouldn't be writing psalms to replace David's. No one would even need to know you're a psalm composer, so there's no need to worry about the judgments of others.
My seminary psalm course professor was a noted academic. He never seemed to consider that as priests we'd be praying psalms with people at every Mass for the rest of our lives. So here I am, about 47 years later wanting to write, A Psalm of Stephen. I knew a priest who every day wrote what he called his, angry psalm. He was in AA and I expect he needed to write his angry psalms to help him stay the gentle, light-hearted man I knew him to be. But a psalm can reflect any emotion. It does seem to me however that even an angry or sad psalm needs to have some expression of gratitude and love for God who deserves our confidence.
So, I'd invite you to join me. What motivated the psalm below that I've composed myself? I was in a public garden and standing for mesmerized minutes at the edge of two large sections of Mountain Mint, a remarkable native pollinator plant which was covered with hundred of pollinators: seemingly every kind and size bee, wasp, moth and butterfly. They were so distracted in their grazing, getting stung didn't even enter my mind. Here's a few pointers if you'd like to set out with me:
- Avoid religious sounding language; Jesus spoke plainly.
- Maybe begin with something that's moved you deeply recently.
- Remember in high school — simile and metaphor?
- Avoid rhyming lines — it's too much work and makes things sound stilted.
- Do I need permission? Baptism is your ticket.
- But CAN I do this? Of course you can. But many of us have been shutdown in one way or another. Find or re-discover your voice. No excuses.
- Avoid words that are over-used, powerless, or that say too little. Stretch your vocabulary.
- Father Antony Bloom said, "Don't pray until you feel something." Write from the heart.
- There are four basic emotions: happy, sad, angry, afraid. Everything else will fall into these categories. A psalm can include any/all of these feelings.
- Can I invent words? Absolutely. I think I may have invented two in my psalm here.
- What about punctuation and grammar? God is not a teacher with a red pencil
I want to sing my own song,
a new song
to the God of endless imagination,
who brings beauty into being
and everything alive,
all seasoned and cyclic,
and me —
meditated and still,
locked-on before this brilliance.
Here I am before these mountains of Mountain Mint,
July-blooming,
square-stemmed,
silver-leaved,
galax-ied flowers, soft lavender-pink,
slow to bloom,
creating anticipation.
Here I am in this warming air,
by bright morning sun,
mint covered in the diversity of bees —
striped bumbled bees,
honey bees,
almost micro bees,
small wasps,
moths and butterflies.
But there's nothing to be afraid of,
they're oblivious to my presence,
drinking up the nectar-gift —
the apiarist wondering if
this year's honey-harvest will have a minty taste.
And as the plants gently sway
for countless translucent wings in motion,
is the air vibrating;
do I really hear soft buzzing?
And while I'd do nothing to confound an inquisitor,
I have to wonder,
(and laughing as I do),
is this what it is to touch your pulsing heart,
O God?
