Psalm 27 - Light and Help

Psalm 27 is one that is often shared by people as one of their most meaningful Psalms and I think a lot has to do with how it starts out.

You are my light and my help
Whom should I fear?

The more traditional language of it says,

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?

So before I go any further, I want to ask for some help with today’s Psalm. Regardless of what your faith background is, I believe that we all have something, someone, someplace, that we go to for illumination in our lives. So, in the comments can you share what that thing is? Or if you wanted to share a photo, you can upload it here:

In a few days, I’ll share what others send in.

There are many things that I could share for me but I’ll go with a literal light - the thing that I go to every day if I could - a sunrise. This was the sunrise on Tuesday morning that Scout and I saw on a bitterly cold morning.

These moments always help me re-center and restore. But there was another story that I read on Wednesday morning that I wanted to share about finding illumination and light to get us through times of fear.

In her most recent book, Sage Warrior, Valerie Kaur is re-telling stories of the Sikh gurus and connecting them to ways of living today. In the story I read this morning, she tells of Bibi Bhani going into labor with one of her children. Kaur writes:

BOOM!

Bhani wailed. Thunderous pain tore through her. When the pang lifted, she tasted salt. Her face was wet with tears. This labor was so much faster and harder than her previous ones.

Bhani took a few steps toward her father’s meditation room. Another pang. She grabbed onto a peg that protruded from the wall next to the door. Her father’s keeli, the peg he held in standing meditation. She had never touched it before. My own standing meditation, thought Bhani vaguely as the next pang hit.

Bhani gripped the peg and closed her eyes. Her father once told her of a serene lake surrounded by forest, and a mud hut at the edge of the water. He once meditated in that hut. It was the most peaceful place he had seen, he said. A realm of serenity and truth. Sach khand. That’s where she wanted to be now. She searched inside herself. A blank void. Shades of gray.

Bhani started to hum. As she hummed—a gold sparkle appeared in the corner of her vision.

Bhani saw a great shimmering pool of blue water, golden sunlight rippling on the surface. She was standing in the grass by the water. There was a hut in front of her, but she wanted to stay out in the warm light, beneath the blue sky. She knelt at the pool and drank the cool water and rested in the soft green grass. A baby cooed on the grass next to her. Her baby. He had large luminous eyes like hers. She reached out to touch him—

BOOM!

Bhani was thrown out of the meadow. The pain was powerful, but it was happening far below her now, and she was above it, looking down, noticing, watching, waiting for the thunder to pass so that she could return to the pool and the meadow and the light and hold her baby. Back and forth she went, into the sunlit meadow, then down into the bowels of pain, then up again into the light. Until Mata Khivi said it was time.

Bhani was on her back on the manji in her room now, and the pangs were coming so fast they merged into each other. A tunnel of fire opened from under her. Bibi Amro’s hands were on her shoulders, her mother’s palm on her forehead, and Mata Khivi at her feet, but they were all so far away. They could not go through the tunnel with her. She had to go alone. She wanted to be with her baby by that great shimmering lake again. The only way was through the fire.

Bhani took a breath, and pushed; her flesh seared. She wailed. She took another breath and pushed. A warm wet body slipped out of her. Mata Khivi placed the baby on Bhani’s chest. The newborn trembled like a soaked little songbird.

Bhani was laughing and sobbing. She had found a place within her she never had before, a place that was infinitely serene, where she could be safe and free, a space apart—a sovereign space. A world of pain could not touch her in that meadow; the hot winds could not touch her. From this place, she birthed this baby. It had taken all her strength to find it. A mountain of courage, the courage of lions. No, warrior courage.

Bhai Jetha was led into the room. He took Bhani’s hand.

“Arjan.” She whispered the baby’s name.

Warrior. A warrior who came through a warrior’s body.¹

I loved this story of Bibi Bhani finding that place of restoration, healing, and illumination in the midst of brutal pain and struggle and finding how it brought her through the eventual relief of the birth of her child. Day-by-day sunrises help me find places that are my light and my help, my light and my salvation.

So, again, what is that place for you? What is your light? Your illumination? That place that brings you through the fear and pain?

Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed

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PS - Scout booping the camera…

1. Kaur, Valarie. Sage Warrior: Wake to Oneness, Practice Pleasure, Choose Courage, Become Victory (The Revolutionary Love Project) (pp. 99-101). (Function). Kindle Edition.