How powerful is your Name
in all the earth!
You, whose glory is sung in heaven
by the angels and saints,
Who with the innocence and
spontaneity of a child,
Confound those who are mighty
and proud,
You comfort the unloving and fearful.
When I look up at the heavens,
at the work of Love's creation,
at the infinite variety of your Plan,
What is woman that You rejoice in her,
And man that You do delight in him?
You have made us in your image,
You fill us with your Love;
You have made us co-creators of
the earth!
guardians of the planet!
to care for all your creatures,
to tend the land, the sea,
and the air we breathe;
all that You have made,
You have placed in our hands.
O Love, my Beloved,
How powerful is your Name
in all the earth!
Most of the time I know what I am going to say here a day or two before it's time to write. Today, I had no clue. All day I sort of waited for the lightbulb to go off. I figured I would find a line from a psalm at evening praise and use that, but when we began with Psalm 8 tonight (Nan Merrill's version is above), something else happened. Someone was walking to her prayer seat, and while we were reciting, she was reciting the lines from memory as she walked. How beautiful? One of my favorite things about the monastic life, one so deeply entwined with the psalms, is that this holy poetry becomes a part of us. This moment tonight reminded me of something I just read from Kathleen Norris (Amazing Grace, again):
It interests me to find so little God-talk in monasteries. This sometimes disappoints the more pious (or romantic) candidates who assume that monks spend all their time discussing visions and are shocked to find them evaluating the World Series instead. I suspect that the ample spiritual wisdom to be found in monastic communities comes not from pious chatter but the discipline of the psalmody. Immersing people so completely in poems that speak vividly of the human in relation to the holy seems to serve as a corrective to religious code language.
It is only a month until the baseball playoff season begins, right?! (I know Notre Dame won their opener yesterday! GO IRISH!)
Let us walk in the holy presence.
