There are magical sights all around us. I follow a photographer on social media who seems to get to travel to the most amazing places all the time and he shared a video of a waterfall with the bluest water while on a trip to Antarctica. But this photo was on my walk last night with Scout.
The blue that the water reflected was pretty much the same as the blue in the video. But this is at the same lake where my recent ice photos were photographed and is just a short drive from my house.
This photo is a both/and for me with Psalm 11. Fischer translated it in such a way that it gave me an entirely new sense of the song. Comparing it to a traditional version shows that he doesn’t diverge from the root sense of the Psalm but his language is so much more alive. I know I said I wasn’t going to do a wholesale copy and paste of the Psalms but this one I just have to do. (Mr Fischer, if you are reading this, if you would like me to take this down, I will)
I HAVE TRUSTED YOU—
How can you say to my soul
"Take flight like a mountain bird?"Can't you see
Crookedness bending its bow
Setting its arrow on the string
To shoot in the dark
At the upright heart?When the foundation crumbles
What is right?You are in your holy temple
Reclining on your heavenly throne
Yet your eye still sees us
Your gaze still proves usI know you prove the upright
But crookedness and violence-
These your soul casts off
You hurl burning coals at them
Fire and brimstone you rain down
And from their cup they drink
The flaming ripping wind
for you are where rightness isRightness is your loving-kindness
Your face glows with it1
Basically, this Psalm is the writer (attributed to King David) saying that he cannot “take flight like a mountain bird” and escape the realities of what “crookedness” is stirring around him. Yes, he could try to get away from it, hide in the mountains, use his power and privlege to find safety, but he cannot. He writes of how he needs to be in the midst of the “crooked bending the bow...shooting in the dark at the upright heart” and so forth. He shares this not because he’s the only one who can do something about it but because that’s where God wants him to be and that God is in the midst of it all as well.
(Side note - it is easy to read this with our 2025 eyes and say that the statement of “You are in your holy temple...reclining on your heavenly throne” speaks of God being somewhere else, distant, aloof. Without context, that could definitely be read that way. However, for the people of David’s time, this meant that God was literally in the temple, in the midst of Jerusalem, in the midst of everyday life because it was believed that the very presence of God dwelt in the temple. Context is always important).
The photo of the ice and the water reflects (pun intended) this Psalm for me. There are multiple things that can be focused on in the photo. There is the ice, still present, still cold, still hard that also looks grey and dirty. It is like what most of the last few weeks have felt like (literally and figuratively) - like we have lost compassion, kindness, softness, love. At the same time, there is the perfectly still, perfectly mirroring water reflecting the deep blue of the sky on a sunny winter afternoon. That feels like the place of rest and renewal. A place where the melting and the softening has come, stillness is felt, warmth and light abound.
So with the photo I could center on one or the other just as I can in life. I can simply retreat from the challenges of the world, because like King David, my identity in this world affords me a lot of privilege and power (white, cishet, male, etc) to do so - this is the clear, still, mirroring water. Or I can just focus on the myriad of challenges to face and be overwhelmed by the enormity of it all and lose myself in the coldness and the harshness - the still-frozen ice in the photo. Or I can hold both together. I can recognize that I have much privilege and power and, as a result, my job right now is to be the voice and advocate for those whose voices are being silenced (and have been silenced for a long time). But I also have to have energy for the work knowing that I do not have the giftedness, ability, or energy to do everything this time requires. I can do my part and trust in the others doing theirs.
There will be times where I do need to “take flight like a mountain bird” and there will be times that I have to say, “nope, not today. Crookedness is still bending its bow and arrows are being aimed at the upright hearts.” After all, the one whose teachings I try to follow both jumped right into it and also stepped away to restore. Both/And.
Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed
Fischer, Norman. Opening to You. p 13