By the waters of Babylon there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? Psalm 137
O God of Seeing, after we have swallowed the knowledge of good and evil and our eyes are opened, how can we sing your song? When the scales have dropped away, when the clay has been washed off, when we put on the soft garments of grace you made for us, we stumble dazzled by the light, hearts aching for home.
Wayfaring strangers, exiles, we wander here in these soft skins yearning for a better country. We had bit down and tasted, chewed and swallowed that fruit. Our eyes were opened and we had seen. We had witnessed something that we could not speak of, yet must tell. We really weren’t absolutely sure what it was we had seen, but we thought most of the time that it was God. It is true we asked for it, prayed for it – to see God and live, that is. Perhaps it would have been better to have died. Perhaps there are very good reasons why persons who see God rarely live to tell the tale. For now how could we sing a song in this strange land – this earth where gravity weighed hearts to the soil; and mind lay flattened between the pages of time?
What happens if you do not sing? What happens if your eyes are blinded by the light, and it all unfolds before you? What happens if you know the Lord’s song by heart yet do not sing it? Does it rankle in your soul, turn sour, spoil and grow soft mossy mold? Does it take on a parasitic life of its own, feeding on your body, stealing your joy, eating up your hope?
______________________________________
Diana, 32 years ago when you were born, they brought you with swollen eyelids, wrapped tight in the swaddling cloths for the first feeding. When I put your mouth to me, you shuddered. For two days you shuddered as I held you, as one exposed to a chill or some horror. “Lambie pie,” I called you then.
It is too much for us. It is all too much for us. To have eaten what we have eaten. To have seen what we have seen. To know what we know. One day I prayed for hours and could only pray: “Yes, Yes, Yes. Yes there is light. Yes there is hope. Yes there is love.” Even though I felt none of it.
How do you sing a sacred song in a strange land? Maybe you just sing it. Maybe you don’t attempt to be understood. Maybe you just sing what is so, because it is so. For the song’s sake, for the singing’s sake. Could I sing for the song’s sake – for your sake, my sweet Lamb of God? Could I sing you a lullaby as you lie cradled next to my heart shuddering in your mortality?
Once, Diana, you brought me a gift. “This is a prayer stick, mom. I made it for you.” It was a large stick with flowers woven round the top. Could I let the stick pray for me? For I do not know how to pray aright. I lean the stick against the old trunk. “Pray stick,” I say. “Pray now.” I go off to other things, while the stick holds the offering pointing toward heaven. Dare I trust creation to pray for me, to bear my prayer? Here stone, pray. Here river, pray. Here moon, pray. Just by being what you are, a maple branch salvaged from last fall’s ice storm, wrapped round with pink petals, transformed by the touch of a child’s hand into something sacred.
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? That is the question. For our hearts are heavy, and we, captive by this mortal flesh sit down and weep.
I believe that
always
in the face of Noes
the Song must begin with Yes –
yes
body
like
a tube
a culvert
carrying
the
earth’s
refuse
twigs
garbage
whines
knotted, clotted, congealed evil, wads of anguish, passing
through the yes into eternity, cleansed and free. The yes
like a filter, a rinse of spray. You can look at the sin or you
can look at God. If you look too long at the evil, you will
freeze
mesmerized
by it.
So head
on into
perfect
and
funnel
the defiled
to
the undefiled
by virtue
of
your
yes.
Not my will but thine.
Link to Sweet Honey By the Waters of Babylon
This post is excerpted from a chapter in my book, Letters from the Holy Ground – Seeing God Where You Are. Some of these phrases and images have been returning to me lately. As a culture, as a global society, as families, and as individuals we may find ourselves in various contexts of alienation, estrangement, or even captivity. This sense of dislocation and disorientation may be experienced both externally and internally.
Reflection Questions
Are there ways you feel like a stranger in a strange land, taken to a place you did not wish to go?
How do you express your grief?
How do you sing a holy song in alien places and times?
How do you consecrate and make holy the strange lands in the heart and in our world?
Of what does your song consist?
Together we plow the light.
So much love in my heart for all of you.
loretta
The Praying Life 