Finding Balance Through Riffing on Psalm 23
Photos and then a reflection
Ok - I know I’ve dropped 3 posts on you in the last 24 hours, two of which were very long. Here’s one more and then full disclosure, there will be one tomorrow as part of the book series of Hope. I promise to go dark for a few days other than the posts already scheduled. :-) So here’s how this one will work. Just looking at my social media last night and this morning, let’s just say that there’s a LOT going on and a lot of feels out there. I feel it personally as I went out for a 1½ mile walk at about 11:30 last night to blow off some steam (Thank you
for music to rest a troubled soul). I knew that this morning, I needed to find some balance and so I went to my usual happy space and was blessed by what I experienced. So I’m just going to share a bunch of photos from this morning and the last few days and then after that, if you want to read it, a bit of an “improv” reflection on Psalm 23. But here’s the beauty that abounds regardless.First, this morning’s sunrise - photos and then two videos (one 15 min if you want to take the slow lane and one like 30 seconds to see the stunning progression of it all)
30 Seconds
15 Minutes
Then a few from a stunning foggy morning two days ago - one of the benches and then a series of beautiful spiderwebs.
And finally visitors to our wonderful butterfly bush, a rose about to appear, and then a frog looking like he found a tiny bit of shade on a later hike this morning…
And then the reflection… (which if you are reading this on email, you might have to click through to read it)…Just copying what I sent the congregation I am serving…It is tied to a series we have been doing in worship with “improv sermons” based on passages submitted by the congregation. There were several we didn’t get to in the services so I am going to write some reflections on each over the coming weeks.
Psalm 23 - Beauty and Valleys
So, Psalm 23…Here’s the text if you need to read it. This is obviously one of the most well-known and deeply-loved Scripture passages. I thought of Psalm 23 this morning as I was reading in my current book called Life After Doom by Brian McLaren. In this book, where McLaren reflects from a faith perspective on the climate challenges we are facing, he comes to a section answering the question, “How then shall we live?”
The chapter I read this morning was called “Beauty Abounds.” He starts the chapter off by distilling down everything we hear around us in the news, etc into two basic stories.
Here’s what he writes about the first basic story:
First is the ongoing story of humanity’s bumpy descent toward collapse, an inevitability—sooner or later—for a civilization in overshoot. This story is not just about atmospheric gases. It’s about our toxic political atmosphere and hot air from the pundit-sphere. It’s not just about rising global temperatures and extreme storms; it’s about our lukewarm spiritual climate and overheated religious extremism. It’s not just about rising sea levels; it’s about rising levels of economic inequality and racial injustice. It’s not just about melting ice; it’s about bonds of connection dissolving among us. It’s a sad story, full of lies and deceit. This story dominates the daily news with a million headlines about craven politicians, crazed shooters, greedy corporate titans, record profits and record temperatures, failing institutions, religious scandal, exploitation of the poor, celebrity distractions, and destruction of the Earth.1
Think of this as the darkest valley that’s talked about in Psalm 23. This is the place that is a place of fear, anxiety, scare tactics, danger, pain, struggle, worry, and the list goes on. It isn’t that it doesn’t exist but this is the place that so many of our politicians, the media, etc want us to stay and to continue to get hooked into.
So let’s go to the other story…. McLaren writes:
The second story is different. In one sense, it’s older; in another sense, it’s always new. It’s the ongoing story of beauty unfolding in the world. It seldom appears on the news, but amazing stories of beautiful news appear every day if we know where to look…I took my morning walk a few hours ago, and the same two words accompanied me. Some days I focus on sight … bold flowers, subtle patterns of light and shadow, shades of tree bark, change and consistency. Beauty abounds. Some days I focus on hearing … a cooing dove, a dog barking from inside a house, wind whispering in pine trees, a neighbor talking to her toddler. Beauty abounds. Today I focused on scent … smoke from a distant wildfire (essential to our local Everglades ecosystem), the smell of bacon from someone’s breakfast, a frangipani in full, fragrant bloom just upwind from me. Beauty abounds. I see it when I look at people … a husband hugging his wife goodbye at the airport, a mom feeding crackers to her toddler in a park, an elderly lesbian couple holding hands at a music festival, a jewelry maker displaying her art at a county fair, a roomful of people busting some impressive moves to “Uptown Funk” at a party. Beauty abounds.2
This is the second story…beauty abounds. This is the green pastures, the still waters, the right paths, the rod and staff that comfort and guide, the resting in the presence of the Good Shepherd - the one who is with us in the darkest valley.
Just like both of these stories are in the Psalm, both stories are present around us. It isn’t about one or the other but about how they both are present with one another for all of us, everywhere. But here’s what stirs for me…which story are we taking in more, which story are we sharing, which story are we dwelling on?
One way to answer this in our lives is this…Do an audit of several days. Upon waking, do you immediately pick up your phone and check the news, social media, read the newspaper, or turn on the news? What about as your day unfolds? Do you leave the news on as the background soundtrack of your day? Do you listen to angry conversations on talk radio or podcasts when you are driving? Do you stay inside with shades drawn or do you get outside to feel the breeze, hear the birds, see the sky, feel the sun, feel a gentle rain? What are you reading through your day? Books or websites or emails that foster a sense of McLaren’s first story or those that lift up the second story that “Beauty Abounds”? What are you sharing with others? Are you texting friends stories that make you angry and that you hope make others angry or are you sharing things that lift up spirits and show the abounding beauty in the world? Can you go to a museum or to a nature center? What about the zoo? Can you create something? Build something? Spend time with a friend? Read Scripture? Read uplifting books? Listen to beautiful music?
A quick bit of basic science - our brains are wired to react more strongly to threats than to non-threats. So when we feed our brains a diet of fear, scares, threats, etc, it is like we keep pressing on the fear button and it just keeps the cycle going. But limiting how much we choose to press that button and choosing to press others can begin to literally rewire how our brains engage and experience the world.
So, on that audit of your day (or days) - to which story do you give more time in your day? Are you putting your focus more on the darkest valley or on the green pastures and the still waters?
If your audit shows that you’re choosing (note my wording there…choosing… sometimes life puts us in places where we have no choice but to be in the dark valley and if we could choose somewhere else we would…but what about what when we have the ability to make choices?)…if your audit shows that you’re choosing to spend more time in the valley, then that is where your perception of the world will be. McLaren write this:
…the internal realities we construct in our minds actually exist in our minds, ugly or beautiful, false or true. They shape our internal values which influence our external behavior. We tend to make the world around us resemble the world within us. Based on our focus, ugliness is everywhere or beauty abounds.3
Again, that’s not to say that we don’t pay attention to what is happening around us or try to ignore the realities that are there that are scary and troubling. But instead, are we making sure we’re at least in balance between the two if not leaning towards seeking the beauty that does abound? The reason I say leaning towards that is that it is the beauty abounding side that helps us to deal with the other side. The “ugliness” (McLaren’s word) isn’t more powerful but it does weigh more heavily upon us. So we have to put more of the beauty on the scale to at least level things out. So look for the beauty that God has brought into the world, take time to seek it, be sure to share it. Find those still waters, those green pastures, feel the guiding rod of God’s rod and staff. Beauty does abound indeed.
McLaren began the chapter with an epigraph quoting one of the Lord of the Rings movies when the two characters who are in the most moral peril are facing a dark valley moment. Here is the exchange between Frodo and Samwise…
FRODO: I can’t do this, Sam.
SAM: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness, and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?
SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo … and it’s worth fighting for.4
Amen, Sam. Amen.
Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed
McLaren, Brian D.. Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart (p. 212). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
McLaren, Brian D.. Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart (p. 214). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
McLaren, Brian D.. Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart (p. 215). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
McLaren, Brian D.. Life After Doom: Wisdom and Courage for a World Falling Apart (p. 211). St. Martin's Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. This quote is taken from Peter Jackson’s film version of The Two Towers, not from JRR Tolkien’s book.
Some Pig!