In my faith tradition, we are in the season of Lent. A season when we remember the self-denial of Jesus who fasted for 40 days and 40 nights and resisted temptation, who left that wilderness empowered by the Spirit to show us a new way to be, to open his arms in the ultimate act of self-denial, for the life of the world. Lent always takes me to the Psalms, the poetry of the Bible. Psalm 121 is a psalm of ascents, most likely written to be sung or recited on a pilgrimage up to Jerusalem. I can’t help but wonder if Jesus, when he set his face to Jerusalem knowing all that faced him there, had these words on his own lips:
1I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.
What was it like to know he was facing his own death and still be able to sing, “The Lord will keep me from all evil”? What was it like to know the darkness and betrayal ahead and still be able to say, “He will not let my foot be moved”? I don’t know what journey the psalmist was on when he first wrote these words down, but I know they have been sung and clung to in some of the darkest places of this world. Words of comfort. Words of hope. Words of a faith that defies circumstance.
Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones, encourages writers to “Take a poetry book. Open to any page, grab a line, write it down and continue from there. A friend calls it ‘writing off the page’.” So this is what I’ve done today. I’ve opened a poetry book, The Psalms, and grabbed the first line, and let it go from there. Here is where it took me:
I lift my eyes to the hills-from where does my help come?
My help comes from sleep, from the extra minutes lying in bed, stolen from the day ahead.
My help comes from coffee, that creamy energizing warmth sliding down my throat and clearing my head.
My help comes from the gym, from the sweat on my brow and the strength in my legs, from the pounding of my heart reminding me I’m well.
My help comes from lunch, better if shared and followed by a little something sweet.
My help comes from the sunlight filling my rooms, cheering the walls and gladdening my heart.
My help comes from trees in bloom and flower buds, opening themselves to the sky and daring me to open, too.
My help comes from friends, from hugs and laughs and sharing the load.
My help comes from family, from goodnight kisses and couch snuggles, from long rounds of Monopoly and dance parties in the kitchen.
My help comes from a five o’clock cocktail, bourbon and ginger ale or scotch and soda, if you please.
My help comes from sleeping children, tucked safely in bed and out of my hair.
My help comes from the television, from stories well-told, providing retreat from the news of the day.
My help comes from a well-worn novel, from beautiful words waking my mind to other worlds as it prepares to dream.
My help comes from my love, from the security and certainty of his embrace, from the comfort of his hand in mine.
But at last, no, my true help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, the giver of all good things. My help comes from the Lord who has searched me and knows me and removes all my transgressions from me. My help comes from the Lord who looks not on outward appearance but on my heart. My help comes from the Lord whose tender mercies are new every morning, who hears every cry, and fills the world and my heart with peace and glory.
So, my friends, write off the page. Pick any line that grabs you; it doesn’t have to be a Psalm or a great work of art. Here’s the full prompt from Natalie Goldberg to help you:
If you begin with a great line, it helps because you start right off from a lofty place. ‘I will die in Paris on a rainy day…It will be a Thursday,’ by the poet Cesar Vallejo. ‘I will die on Monday at eleven o’clock, on Friday at three o’clock in South Dakota riding a tractor, in Brooklyn in a delicatessen,’ on and on. Every time you get stuck, just rewrite your first line and keep going. Rewriting the first line gives you a whole new start and a chance for another direction-‘I don’t want to die and I don’t care if I’m in Paris or Moscow or Youngstown, Ohio.’
We all have a line that grabs us, that plays in our head. What’s yours and where does it want to take you?’