Category Archives: my own work

“Sitting with Pretty”, or seeking the WHY before the HOW

I remember the day I painted this, sitting on a high rock perch with my oldest daughter. She (always pretty) owns this painting now, and every time I visit her home, I am reminded of those quiet moments in that magic place with her. The natural pink palisade wall below us overlooks the great midwestern American lake we love. That day and some way over on the edge of the cliff, my son and husband were fixing rope to rappel this wall. Preferring not to watch that episode, I chose this view, and got transported instead into the beauty of the long and the far of it all. As C.S. Lewis puts it, we went “higher up and further in.”

This is an early work, one of a few I show on my reorganized image page. It’s important not only sentimentally, but also aesthetically because of the pull landscape has long held for me. Before I knew how to work painting tools, and even as I was fumbling around through the years with them, it was always the big views into far away vistas which moved me into any effort to capture something onto a 2D surface. The result has never been enough but rather a reminder of the “something more” out there that gets me pursuing. I can feel that inner draw even as I type these words.

There are poignant moments when one senses that kind of pull, even without knowing its source. It’s a faint whisper that there is something really important, really heavy, really good “out there for the asking”. How do we even know these things? I do wonder with a kind of humble awe. I somehow grasped a bit of this early on and wanted to understand more long before I became interested in biblical specifics. The WHY draws one first, it seems to me at least, before the HOW has any pertinence. What about for you?

Emily Dickinson, a recluse and a poetic mystic often would use dashes — as if extending thoughts into the air — as part of her vocabulary. I suspect this is so because words themselves (like painting tools) could hardly frame what she was after in any attempt to communicate for others what she could sense in her spirt. Here are just two samples:

In many and reportless places

We feel a Joy –-

Reportless also, but sincere as Nature

Or Deity –-

It comes without a consternation –-

Dissolves — the same –-

But leaves a sumptuous Destitution –-

Without a Name –-

Profane it by a search –- we cannot

It has no home –-

Nor we who having once inhaled it –-

Thereafter roam. 

(c. 1876, #1382 in T. Johnson’s Chronology)

____________

I groped for him before I knew

With solemn nameless need

All other bounty sudden chaff

For this foreshadowed Food

Which others taste and spurn and sneer –-

Though I within suppose

That consecrated it could be

The only Food that grows.

(c.1882, #1555)

Jesus called this food “rivers of living water” and invited the hungry and thirsty to dine with Him. I’ve become convinced that every longing that we experience here, is only a merciful foretaste of the truly more that is available to any, and that, as He said — just for the asking.

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finish in Zion

finishing the ascent

Since July of this CoVid year, I have been posting a reflection on each of the 15 psalms in a sub-collection out of the ancient Psalm book called the “Psalms of Ascent”. These Psalms: 120-134, have fascinated me for a long time as a pattern for spiritual progress. Like Jacob’s ladder, these ascend meaningfully. Like the Hebrew walk up to Jerusalem these get more complex in time and in history referencing that land. And like King Hezekiah’s answered prayer these are an emblem of 15 movements on steps arranged by the only One who controls time and who responds so mysteriously through our requests to Him.

We live in linear time. We start somewhere, we end somewhere; but time moves for us in only one direction. We also live under the limitations of life in all its complexities. Gravity, hardened ground, hardened hearts, decay, illnesses of many kinds, warring nations, suspicions and patterns of mistrust put us all on watch. It does not matter on which continent you live, what language you speak, or what century your life has passaged through, this has been true for you: life is hard, and time only goes forward. None of us can move back in time to our earlier days, we can only step some way ahead into days we’re not sure of. My best advice? Don’t go it alone. Go with the One who is over time and nations, and who has echoed through His whole book about a plan and a purpose for those who are hungry to know.

Abraham was shown the stars, given words about offspring (he didn’t have) a settled land (he couldn’t see) and a blessing beyond his ability to measure. Abraham simply believed the intervening voice of a God he was choosing to follow. What is evidenced in this last Psalm in the Ascent collection is a prophetic view of that coming blessing. It’s a short burst of praise; and like the last two responses in this final triplet it’s a corporate response. Many now are believing, beholding, praising and responding. But we ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

I started this series after a lot of study, then some sketching of the patterns I thought I could see. I’ve mentioned often in earlier posts about the triplet pattern evident: every three Psalms in this set of 15 shows a rhythm that gets repeated through the whole. But there is also a pattern of fives that reflect the 3 promises earlier given to Abraham about the land he was walking toward, the seed which would come from him and the blessing God was not only promising but would guarantee (Gen.12, ratified in ch.15).

The Psalm writers were all descendants of Abraham. The prophets were also; and what they saw ahead was mysteriously sure and echoed often in both their own times but also pointing toward a final fuller FINISH. We’re almost there. I can hear the cheering in the stadium. I have motivation and great confidence, like Abraham did, because of the One who spoke these promises. I can trust (not what I see now but rather) these words because God not only spoke His promises again and again, but He also guaranteed that He would get it done some day in fullest human history.

finish in Zion

A song of ascents.

134 Attention! Praise the Lord,
all you servants of the Lord,
who serve in the Lord’s temple during the night.
2 Lift your hands toward the sanctuary
and praise the Lord.
3 May the Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth,
bless you from Zion.

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a Vision and a Prophecy of UNITY

A song of ascents; by David.

133 Look! How good and how pleasant it is
when brothers truly live in unity.
2 It is like fine oil poured on the head,
which flows down the beard—
Aaron’s beard,
and then flows down his garments.
3 It is like the dew of Hermon,
which flows down upon the hills of Zion.
Indeed, that is where the Lord has decreed
a blessing will be available—eternal life. (NET version)

We’re in the home stretch now with this short burst of a psalm. Like when a marathon runner makes his last turn and can see the stadium up ahead, there’s a final push to make it in. There’s expectation here, but also a necessary reach.

In every triplet of this series of 15 ascent Psalms. we’ve seen specific need expressed in the middle psalm of its set of 3. The theme of each triplet ascends this way in the whole series. From ENTRY to TESTING to FRUIT to PERSECUTION and finally now to the dream of FINISH; the anticipation is heightened. But this last effort is the hardest. And all the more so because this is not a solitary song. It is not a singular race. This whole last triplet is a corporate expression now. Here it is a group, a family, a nation that needs to make it in together.

The Bible is honest about human effort, and especially the track record of brothers getting along well — not a pleasant picture! From the first set of brothers (murder), to Jacob’s sons (treachery), from David’s brothers and his sons to Jesus’ own brothers before His resurrection, we have conflict repeated. Unity is not a facile thing; it cannot be superficially pronounced especially for those who have to “dwell together”. Jews say about themselves “two Jews, three opinions”. How then does any group, hammering out differences, come to any place of real unity?

Unity is not one group silenced or cancelled so the other can claim peace. Coerced unity is the enemy’s game. True unity is hard and courageous work. It is the last battle, and was most on Jesus’ mind for his followers — and what He asked of His Father before He was arrested. Jesus’ torch, and His prophecies have been passed to us — wether we also get arrested or not.

Dr. Martin Luther King said it this way: “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools”

Unity means not to live in one’s own monologue but rather a teachable dialogue. And according to Rev. King, it takes the oppressed to have to bring the issue up. The ones comfortably in power won’t care to know otherwise. When a news anchor (former political strategist) says there aren’t two sides to the story, he is advocating for his monologue and has lost his way as an open minded “journalist”. Unity happens when two sides do the hard work of listening, of trying to respect, and coming to some kind of reasonable understanding.

“Come let us reason together” says the Lord. Think of that! Why would God even care to listen to our argument, our problem! And this is the key: no unity is possible without God’s help.

This core truth is evidenced in Psalm 133. The solution to our problem of unity only comes through Him, and when it does it is a true wonder. That’s why the Psalm begins with an exclamation of astonishment and humility. The resolution toward unity has to come from a source higher than any human’s meagre position.

Just as life is sustained by the material sustenance of water from on high, so also unity is sourced from above: a spiritual anointing from God. Both the material and the spiritual are illustrated in parallel here. Then Aaron is referenced: he was the first priest to the Hebrew nation. The human priest was simply not effectual until he was anointed by God with oil, and then symbolically that sustenance flowed from him to the group.

Simply and urgently put: human unity does not happen apart from God’s entrance into the situation, and our recognition of need so that He does, invited.

Mount Herman, Israel. A symbol of Unity

In my rendition of this Psalm, I tried to suggest Mt. Hermon, the highest height in Israel. Jews and pagans would look to the heights for answers (cf. Psalm 121). But if their expectation was only in the natural realm there would be no real help coming. In this Psalm however there is a picture of lasting spiritual blessing with God. For only with God is true unity possible.

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remember

As we enter the very last triplet in this series called The Psalms of Ascent, we are hearing more than a brief plea, but rather now a treatise of important national memory. We’re moving from the personal to the corporate. In Psalm 132, we are in the longest Psalm in the collection of these Hebrew traveling songs. King David’s written and very personal prayers we’ve recently encountered. 132 is an older Psalm from the same era; but it broadens to a corporate call forward. Psalm 132 looks back, but also importantly ahead to a very sure God-promised and covenanted future, and specific promise made to David. We are peering currently here into the world-wide importance of Israel’s story, which is highlighted in so much of the Bible’s macro-story. Inform yourself, especially in our own times at hand, as to what is yet coming for all earth dwellers. What has gone before is pattern for what is yet to play out. To know this is to know the way forward.

Why would an American gentile, born midway in the 20th century have any interest in these words? If it weren’t for a Jewish friend who spoke of Abraham to me personally 52 years ago, I would have remained oblivious and blinded to most important things. Have you not yourself seen enough evidence in current events to hunger also for someone to speak to you about what is real, true and lasting?! Eugene Peterson wrote poignantly in 1980 “A Christian who has David in his bones, Jeremiah in his bloodstream, Paul in his fingertips and Christ in his heart will know how much and how little value to put on his own momentary feelings and the experience of the past week.” (!)

These are traveling songs: as has been outlined in my previous 12 postings. These entire 15 psalms concern the journey of celebratory return. They are arranged and patterned out for the sons of Israel, on their way up to Zion. The language is clear about this throughout. Those of us who are not of the Hebrew tribes can take instruction from these at least as symbolic parallels, as watchwords; but the words themselves were written by and for Hebrews, especially in this very last triplet before us now. I may not live through the fulfillment of what these Psalms point to, but it is possible you will, my friend.

As already detailed, every triplet in this series followed a certain cadence (1. distress, 2. reliance, 3. resolution). Here in this last triplet we see the very same. Psalm 132 is the distress of longing, memory and urgent appeal. The last two psalms yet coming will quickly and very concisely move like staccato beats to the corporate national finale. Like in a fireworks show, you will know it when you see it! The full throated unified reliance and then joyous resolution is yet coming, but not before some detailed distress. This has been long promised in all of the Book.

Mature direction pays attention to history; any wise counselor, gentile or Hebrew knows this. The best questions I ever heard were given by the angel of the Lord to a distraught woman in Genesis 16: “Where have you come from? And where are you going?” Without a clear-eyed sense of what went before and what is yet coming, we are at the mercy of whims and lies. You have enough evidence of that kind of stupidity all around you. Don’t stay there paralyzed in media fog, speculation, political manipulation, empty promise and bias. You are being lied to and your gut already knows it.

In my illustration of this important historical Psalm, I aimed to give a sort of timeline sense of the historical darkness which existed before Israel ever came into the land of promise, and the darkness and destruction which came upon them later from both the Babylonians and then later the Romans. The ladders in the middle reference Jacob’s dream repeated in the human aspirations of every other wrangler who aimed for what he was after without relying on God’s good direction. But there is a way given, “even for Jacob” .

Remember the God who still promises. He is the bigger point in all these Psalms. In the end, He alone is the golden sustainer.

The singers of these songs were not the first to seek after God’s sure presence in a walking trek, nor would they be the last who will seek Him with songs of remembrance. Why don’t you consider joining them?

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the repose

How fitting, though unplanned by me, that the last entry I post in this tumultuous year 2020 is Psalm 131! This psalm and this particular painting is my practiced place of determined rest. I set this Psalm to music in my 40’s so I could memorize it and live it better. These words have served me, checked me so importantly and practically! Soak in them for just a moment of your own:

A Song of Ascents, of David (NAS version)

131 O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty;
Nor do I involve myself in great matters,
Or in things too difficult for me.

2  For Surely, I have composed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child rests against his mother,
My soul is like a weaned child within me.

3 O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth

and forever.

We’ve been tracking on this blog my ambition in the present year to finish a long-imagined dream rendering the 15 Psalms of Ascent onto 14×14” cradled panels. There are 3 more yet to show you, but those I’ll talk about next year. For now, it is enough to just stay in this important place for a little while.

King David of Israel spoke these words, likely put it to melody, and also had to learn it the hard way. In other words, this place of repose did not come naturally to him either. His life was complex, but this psalm is not!

This entire collection of 15 Psalms were arranged into the book after Israel’s exile for travel home. Four of these songs were selected from Israel’s archive, from their ancient King. Here are David’s contribution to the whole: 122 (the 1st triplet’s rest Psalm), 124 (the 2nd triplet’s determination to trust), 131, here the result of the 4th triplet’s trial, and then 133 (the last triplet’s middle declaration).

David surely practiced what he talks about here. The imagery of a haughty look is something easy to imagine in any gifted personality exalted to a high place. We have current examples from our own time. But David, from a young age had also a heart after God. Note that God has a true hatred for arrogance. And God won out.

David’s imagery continues with this idea of a weaned child resting against his mother. As one who fed babies, this is poignant to me. If the baby stays close even when the feeding part is over, there is a wonder of rest for both the child and for his mother, skin to skin. It is a matter of just quiet enjoyment, of built relationship. This is priceless. And for many who use God just for what they imagine he can do for them before they quickly run off, this is a hard thing to learn. It takes time and a decision to stay.

The 17th century Catholic mystic Madame Guyon wrote in her autobiography about this very thing. Like David, she’d had to determine where she would reside for “the better part” beyond physical nourishment. David said “I have composed and quieted my soul like a weaned child…” So even past child feeding, there is this place of sumptuous rest. Guyon describes it this way:

“It is not a repose in peace tasted, in the sweetness and mildness of a perceived presence of God; but it is a repose in God himself which participates of his immensity, so much has it of vastness, simplicity and purity.”

In my version here, the key of the painting is much lighter and brighter than the Psalm painting which preceded this (which in fact led to this). No longer is the voice here self-focused but rather enmeshed. The pilgrim here has moved more deeply into God’s side, and more simply into the place of His given repose. For David, for Guyon, even for me and any number of others who know this sweetest place it is a very personal thing.

This is not a corporate psalm; it is in no way a group experience. The last triplet to come in the collection we’ll see is entirely a corporate experience. But this personal expression necessarily comes first, this is a singular place learned and enjoyed. Yet as the last verse here hints, from this place one longs for others to know it also. That’s why all three of us: David in Hebrew, Guyon in French and me in English have labored to put this beauty to words.

As a further treat to end the year, I offer a link, introduced in English spoken in contemporary French and referencing the Hebrew which grounds the hope given therein.

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the crucible

In the previous Psalm of this series the writer has been hit broadside. You can hear it as he flails around in focus between the pain, his long history with this pain, the ones causing the pain, his recollection of the Lord’s justice and his imagination at what observers might say…

Psalm 130 follows and this is where the writer gets way more effectively focused. It is fitting that such singularity would happen here, for remember the triplet rhythm we’ve already seen 3x in this whole collection of 15, even as we sit now in the middle of its 4th triplet. Every time this rhythm was walked through (1. Distress, 2. Reliance, 3. Resolve) the middle Psalm of each triplet was the pivotal expression, or the necessary bridge between the problem and the resolution.

We don’t know how much time has passed between the writer’s experience of the pain of Ps.129; but by the time in his own life that he voices 130, the pain is excruciatingly worse. It is internal now, personal; it is between him and his God now, and some things have had to get clear to him in focus. Observe how he does that, how he pivots, and how he makes a direct appeal:

A song of ascents.

130 From the deep water I cry out to you, O Lord.
2 O Lord, listen to me.
Pay attention to my plea for mercy.
3 If you, O Lord, were to keep track of sins, O Lord, who could stand before you?
4 But you are willing to forgive, so that you might be honored.
5 I rely on the Lord.
I rely on him with my whole being; I wait for his assuring word.
6 I yearn for the Lord, more than watchmen do for the morning,
yes, more than watchmen do for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord, for the Lord exhibits loyal love,
and is more than willing to deliver.
8 He will deliver Israel from all their sins.

It’s commonly easy to bail on God at any broadside hit. I love how the scriptures, in many places, are downright transparent about this. We flounder, we fret, we complain bitterly, then we look for a fix. Too often that fix is our own quick pain-relieving strategy: “out of my way, let ME handle this” (read Jacob, read Peter…). But to stay with God, to trust His character through our own tears, to wait on His solution is by far the better (even if immediately more painful) choice. Can you hear the excruciation going on here? “deep water” “pay attention”! “who can stand” “rely on Him with my whole being” “wait” “yearn” “He will”…

A crucible is defined by one dictionary as “a situation of severe trial, or in which different elements interact, leading to the creation of something new”. I find that fascinating, for there is mention even by definition of an elemental interaction before we can get to the something new. And consider this: apparently the latin root, crux, references back to the cross. In the medieval period, a “crucible” was a night lamp which illuminated that cross as the main point in the darkness.

Now, I wasn’t thinking of the cross when I painted this piece (though that reality certainly is prefigured in this Psalm 130: “willing to forgive” “loyal love” “sins” “deliver”. I was thinking of my own Psalm 129 type pain, which is spoken also in Psalm 42 “Why are you in despair, my soul? And why are you restless within me? Wait for God, for I will again praise Him For the help of His presence, my God.”

Both these cries were voiced and recorded by a God follower hundreds of years before the cross. Both of them were experienced on the cross. And both of them have been my experience. But like the focus forged inside the Psalmist’s heart, I have had to learn to look to the only fix that is solid and worth waiting for. Look at the mud color in my rendition of this hard place. The black and red intrusions show the pressure, and the paint application is fluid. There’s a linear mark indicating the cry upward, and in the distance, something comes clearer to focus on. That something is detailed by the Psalmist’s words about the abiding character of His God.

This to me, is the most important pivot in the entire collection of 15 Ascent Psalms. A lot of journey has been covered already. But there is nothing “automatic” about making it to the end intact with a heart that has stayed hot toward God. The choice of Psalm 130 is where that aim gets exampled.

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ambush

Where the reward took time and trust, we are suddenly thrust now into a reversal of fortune. The movement from Psalm 128 to 129 is the most drastic change in all the flow of this progression. Psalm 128 was enjoyment around a table of blessing. Psalm 129 is a cry of pain, and the scariest reality encountered in this entire 15 Psalm series of Ascent.

The fact that this can happen, and so suddenly begs some closer examination. What is the real nature of good things we enjoy? Good is typically something ‘organic’, that is, it grows with cultivation and care. Evil is like a car crash; you didn’t see it coming until it hit you.

Good is a crafted re-making. It’s participatory also: some one is involved with some stuff, and this emerges with grace (see the entire triplet just before 129 crashes into the story). Evil is autocratic, at its entry you had no say. This contrast was very evident in the beginning (read the 1st 3 chapters of Genesis). And both these realities, good and evil, have shown themselves as exhibits A-Z throughout all of human history. This is so anyone with eyes to see and a hungry, struggling heart can make up their own mind from their own experiences with good and with its opposite about which place they want to call home.

I’m calling it out: this obvious contrast between good and evil, and I am doing so because I don’t like to see what happens to people stuck in Psalm 129. I’ve hated, just viscerally hated being there myself. And I am bearing a deep sadness for a couple people I know who are there right now.

In this series of 15, we have now plunged into the 4th triplet. I’ve named it TRIAL. It begins hard and it becomes harder until some release at the end of this triplet. It is the most difficult to experience and the harshest visually. In my rendition you can see this with color, line and cords of pain. But paradoxically, this triplet (Ps.129-131) includes my very favorite and most practiced prayer. We’ll get there soon; but for now, don’t deflect the excruciating reality of this harsh place, it must be walked through before more can be realized.

Jesus carefully warned his intimates, in the last week of his life here about harsh times coming, saying that for many their “love will grow cold.” And hundreds of years earlier the prophet Habakkuk saw the same on the horizon “and I fear”.

It is an act of faith for God-followers to voice, out loud and to Him, when things get really tough, being honest with the One we say we trust. If He is real, then an expectation of justice is reasonable. If He is not real, then any words, and any expectations are entirely meaningless.

In the Jewish Talmud, Ben Bag-Bag said: “Turn it over, and [again] turn it over, for all is therein. And look into it; And become gray and old therein; And do not move away from it, for you have no better portion than it.”

I will just add (and it’s on good authority that I can) to Ben Bag-Bag’s wisdom, that the better portion is yet coming. Jesus and Habakkuk spoke of that also. This place of despair is not the end; it is only the voicing in the distress. We’re not finished yet. Even in Psalm 129 this expectation is hinted at, even as it trails off in sadness.

Psalm 129, a song of ascents

“Since my youth they have often attacked me,” let Israel say.
2 “Since my youth they have often attacked me, but they have not defeated me.
3 The plowers plowed my back; they made their furrows long.
4 The Lord is just;
he cut the ropes of the wicked.”
5 May all who hate Zion be humiliated and turned back.
6 May they be like the grass on the rooftops, which withers before one can even pull it up, 7 which cannot fill the reaper’s hand, or the lap of the one who gathers the grain.
8 Those who pass by will not say,
“May you experience the Lord’s blessing!
We pronounce a blessing on you in the name of the Lord.”

(NET version)

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reward realized

Patterns that come to our awareness reveal that something’s up. For example, leaves which have fallen to the ground are not surprising — there’s a randomness in the pile which I can easily ignore. But if on my sidewalk one Fall day, 15 colorful leaves are lined up pointing in the same direction, and every set of three repeats the same color progression: let’s say first a bright red; after that a solid yellow; thirdly a brilliantly splashed leaf of oranges over green (and then that pattern repeats 5x) probably anyone would puzzle instinctively that somebody set this up! We’d expect that there was some kind of intention, maybe lifting our eyes to look around for the instigator. Order is no accident; in fact, this is one of the foundational laws of thermodynamics: order is an intervention from typical randomness. And any pattern shows some causation which is bigger than the elements involved. Even newborns perk up at patterns with focused attention.

So it is with this collection of Psalms called “the Ascents” (120-134). There are five sets of triplets in this whole of 15 songs, all gathered to catch your interest. The entire collection is pointing the alert reader somewhere. These were often sung on an ascending journey. We’ve already mentioned in earlier posts the 1.2.3. cadence in this arrangement. The first Psalm in each triplet presented a problem, the second stated an act of reliance, and the third reported the resolution.

With Psalm 128 we’ve completed the third repeat of this triplet pattern. And I find it interesting (and compatible with life) that the problems of each subsequent triplet have magnified to more complex issues. The first set: 120-122 was about ENTRY, the second set: 123-125 about TEST, and the third we’re finishing now is about the reward in time of enjoying the FRUIT:

A song of ascents.

128 How blessed is every one of the Lord’s loyal followers,
each one who keeps his commands.
2 You will eat what you worked so hard to grow.
You will be blessed and secure.
3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
in the inner rooms of your house;
your children will be like olive branches,
as they sit all around your table.
4 Yes indeed, the man who fears the Lord
will be blessed in this way.
5 May the Lord bless you from Zion,
that you might see Jerusalem prosper
all the days of your life,
6 and that you might see your grandchildren.
May Israel experience peace.

(New English Trans.)

If you’ve been tracking these songs, you already read the longing for such fruit in Ps.126, then the implicit promise of it in Ps.127 to any who trusted in his Originator, now we have real experience of result.

I selected bright field colors for this one, in fact this is one of the brightest of the whole series as I have rendered them. We’re catching a thanksgiving moment here with lots of anticipation of good things. The paint is laid down thickly. It took time to see this emerge for me in a way that was satisfying. But if the viewer or singer enters into this, we’re still also in a real moment, one we can sense right now. A light bright rain is falling, the ground is wet, and the fruit is ready to be enjoyed.

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announcing the score, Psalm 124

We’ve entered the test, but it has only gotten harder — not easier on this journey.

The image here and the words inspiring my painting come from Psalm 124. Imagine the scene “when men attacked us”, “would have swallowed us alive”, “anger raged”, “overwhelmed”, “as prey to their teeth”, “current”, “snare”. Though these words are 3000 years old, we can supply our own ready images from the nightly news. As Solomon said, ‘there is nothing new under the baking sun’.

But, take heart time-traveler, for true to form and following the rhythm established in this 15-piece masterwork, this Psalm is a pivot. It’s the Reliance Psalm right in place between Distress and Resolve. The trouble is present here, it’s new and it is intense, but the reliance spoken of is also new and real while coming from of old. This pivot is a mid-triplet turning point midst the three Psalms that 124 sits within. We’ve already seen the journeyer is in Distress in 123. The Resolve will follow in Psalm 125. But in between is the crucial Pivot which announces this turning point.

Knowing how important the Pivot point is in my journey, your journey, and in any substantive move forward, I looked to see what could possibly be indicated as exemplary pivoting when the writer is so embattled. I was focusing on, even painting the trauma and could not see the point. But the writer’s Pivot is hidden in plain view in his very 1st words. It is almost too simple to appreciate. He tells the tale of trauma, but he announces the Victor in his first breath. “If the Lord had not been…” then later “the Lord deserves praise” and lastly “Our deliverer is the Lord!”

I thought of when I took a really hard test in college, then walked glumly into the building where the scores were posted. If my test score had been poor, I would have stayed quiet, but when I saw a victory, everybody had to hear about it whether they cared or not! Such the same here: “escaped” “help” “had it not been”!

David the warrior King of Israel, is the one who wrote these words in Psalm 124. Scholars who have looked at the history of the writings about the Hebrew Kings, and the transcriptions after the exile, suggest with good evidence that the entire 5th Book of the Psalms (107-150) was compiled as a final last volume into the Psalter, after the Hebrews had returned from Babylon. In other words, David, who penned this Psalm 500 years before, provides by his example the timeless pivot into the TESTING triplet in this compilation of Ascents. David knew by much personal experience what it was to turn his mind and his heart after God. And here, as in his storied life, he turns his heart to the Victor even in the trenches.

We’ve all had tests; especially so do God-followers who are traveling uphill against the current of culture in every age. But when God is seen, named and relied upon midst the struggle, the test-taker announces where any victory comes from.

A song of ascents; by David.

124 “If the Lord had not been on our side”—
let Israel say this.—
2 if the Lord had not been on our side,
when men attacked us,
3 they would have swallowed us alive,
when their anger raged against us.
4 The water would have overpowered us;
the current would have overwhelmed us.
5 The raging water
would have overwhelmed us.
6 The Lord deserves praise,
for he did not hand us over as prey to their teeth.
7 We escaped with our lives, like a bird from a hunter’s snare.
The snare broke, and we escaped.
8 Our deliverer is the Lord,
the Creator of heaven and earth.

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entering the test

The walking rhythm has been established. The first set of three Psalms in this series has set the pace and shown us an overview. Yet the journey has really just begun.

In his allegorical series The Chronicles of Narnia, British writer C.S. Lewis articulates a similar view to what we’ve just glimpsed in Psalm 122. Lewis’ tale has a mythical unicorn, Jewel, speaking for all when she says “This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it til now…” she then calls out to the company around her to keep going. ”Come further up and further in”, repeating a phrase she’d just heard from the lion figure, Aslan. “He turned swiftly round, crouched lower, lashed himself with his tail and shot away like a golden arrow. ‘Come further in! Come further up!’ he shouted over his shoulder. But who could keep up with him at that pace? They set out walking Westward to follow.”

The Psalms of Ascent, Psalms 120-134 are a walking journey into the mysteries of all God has planned for those who desire to follow Him. And each Psalm takes us into new territory, unexpected, yet keeping with the walking pace established in the first triplet. We now are entering the second triplet of this series of 15.

Allegorical fantasies, and semi-abstract paintings may get closer to the wild wonder inherent in such a trek as we find in the Psalms of Ascent.

The painting I accomplished for Psalm 123, pictured here, is unlike the postcard suggestions in my first three landscapes of this series. This one pulls the viewer right in and on some darkening ground in real space. There’s a sense of activity behind the tree stands; but the thrust is upward, above the hills and further up into the atmosphere.

The walking rhythm we’ve already experienced in Psalms 120–122: 1. Distress, 2. Reliance, 3. Resolution, repeats now into a new measure of this whole song. And what is fascinating in this 2nd triplet, is that the Distress phase, the cry for help which begins each triplet is repeating some of the Reliance words we saw evidenced in the 1st triplet’s middle Psalm. In other words, what the traveler learned to do after his first woeful distress, he now is practicing at the very beginning of his second period of distress. He is further in. His base camp is higher than when he began.

Many quick readers or bystanders might dismiss at this point, saying “been there, done that”. However, don’t miss how Psalm 123 is preparing the treker. Compared to the resolution just viewed in 122, Psalm 123 has the traveler right back into some of the mundane difficulties of what a serious adventure really is. The journey has soundly begun; but here the pilgrim’s journey shows some attenuated concern, here he is tested. And it is right here where many bail, for the trek is more than they assumed. In John Bunyan’s classic allegory Pilgrim’s Progress, the character Pliable gets into first trouble at this point — and retreats in disgust.

But the God-ward traveler trains his eyes past the trouble, he has to if he wants to make it through: “I look up toward you…” he says. He then adds a couple illustrative examples as he muses in his steps “until He shows us favor”. He is in difficulty, he is awaiting answer, but he has to wade through it in faith. This is the test.

This Psalm exemplifies how a continuing walk will keep on: straight ahead, straight through. “Show us favor, O Lord, show us favor!…” The road is not easy, he describes what it feels like. Like Psalm 120, he names the scoffing and the contempt around him, but his focus is higher for his trust has been established. At this point the traveler has an informed connection with His Lord.

 The commitment to make the full journey gets a real try-out here. The purpose of any test is to reveal what (if anything?) has been learned. In fact, it can be said that the fortitude to finish the rest of the journey gets outfitted through the test in the experience of this Psalm.

I look up toward you,
the one enthroned in heaven.
Look, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a female servant look to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes will look to the Lord, our God, until he shows us favor.
Show us favor, O Lord, show us favor!
For we have had our fill of humiliation, and then some.
We have had our fill
of the taunts of the self-assured,
of the contempt of the proud.

Psalm 123, New English Translation

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glad resolve

I am continuing here with some words about each of my new pieces which are part of a whole series of 15. The 15 “Psalms of Ascent” are positioned in the 5th and last “book” or volume of the Hebrew Psalter. And this progression is fascinating in that the microcosm echoes the macrocosm! In other words, what is glimpsed in the gathered detail inside this collection and it’s individual parts also reveals an informed interweaving into the whole of Scripture! The entire, and all its parts are masterfully written.

With these 15 ancient Ascent Psalms, the triplets show the rhythm while the three sets of 5 reveal the stages in the long ascending journey. I’ll write more of those stages later.

Here’s how the repeating rhythm can be seen. Each triplet in this progression ends with the disruption, recently voiced, now resolved. It’s a simple pattern familiar in so many written dramas or musical movements. The first movement or dramatic scene begins with distress. The second develops to a climax. Then the third finally quiets in time to an experience of resolution.

As a whole, this very first triplet of the entire set of 15 shows us this archetype both in its first verse: 120:1, but then in the walking out of the three journey psalms here. That pattern is evident in the triplet (1.Distress 2.Reliance 3.Resolve). This particular set of three Ps. 120-122 takes us from troubled spirit in foreign soil (120) to a pivot of reliance on the God of Abraham (121) to finally a voiced experience of arriving “glad”! One can sense the relief of the original writer in Psalm 122. The longed-for destination has been reached.

Another fascinating feature in this particular triplet is how the action moves from people (liars, deceivers, “those who hate peace”) to a personal decision (the pivot explained in my last post) and then back to people. But this last group of people are at peace. They have welcomed the new arrival; they give thanks and gather together. “I was glad when they said to me…” The troubled individual traveler has become part of a new company. The traveler had to make his consequential pivot individually, but the context of others surrounds his story in really informative ways. Hence, I see this triplet in my notes as the ENTRY triplet in the developing larger story.

Not only is the first verse in the entire series an archetype of this in short form, but this first triplet (the first 3 whole Palms of the series) also secures the pattern –for it telescopes deep time from foreign despair to settled finality. Human history and individual histories can be encapsulated in this first progression of 3.

David is attributed as the writer of this resolve Psalm 122. He was the early King who captured Jerusalem, where his throne was then set up. However, his own and his nation’s history was troubled, and the Psalm ends here with admission of great need. Five hundred years after David’s reign, trouble had multiplied, and the nation was taken captive into Babylon for 70 years. Scholars say that the 5th “book” in the Psalm collection was compiled after that exile as Jews made their historic walking return to Jerusalem: microcosm and macrocosm through time.

I’ve tried to visually suggest much of this glad entry in this work. There is a symbol of an individual, like a green reed, smallish and in the center. But “he” is surrounded by light, by a protective covering of sorts and the mark-making gives an impression of history with many others present alongside him.

If you were stuck on a deserted island and only had this triplet of three Psalms for your sustenance, you would have enough to know that trusting God is possible from anywhere and that if you do, He will secure you in the end. It’s the character of the God of Abraham to make good on every promise He has given.

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