Psalm 36 - Why I Love the Psalms and the Movies + a few extras and Psunday Psalm Psummary

Mar 02, 2025

Ok - last day of movies & Psalms since the Oscars ceremony is on tonight. As you have probably picked up on in reading here as well as in my book (and if you’ve gotten to know me outside of these areas), I love the Psalms and I love movies. I actually think that I love them both for similar reasons. First, here’s the photo - two moments photographed not 30 seconds apart. After several beautiful and warmer days, we are back to cold and chilly. Scout and I had parked the car at our town’s compost station to dump our compost and then were heading on a walk from there. It is near one of the soccer fields in town and there’s a playground next to it as well. Here’s what I saw.

Grey, cold, dreary day but over across the soccer field on the playground was a young person just swinging and swinging on the swingset. With each back and forth was a loud squeaking sound of the chains but this young person was kicking their legs out and back in as they went back and forth. While watching, I could almost feel that unqiue feeling in the gut as you just start the swing back at the highest point. As Scout and I walked further along away from the park, we could continue to hear the sound of the swingset as they continued to swing. I loved the fact that this young person was out there swinging by themselves on a cold, ugh day. There was a sense of defiance to it for me - defiance of a day that says to most, “stay inside.” But there they were on the swing for whatever reason it was they went out. Just swinging.

At the same time, there was a tiny break in the clouds and you can see it in the middle of the sky part of the image. The photo doesn’t come close to reflecting what it looked like in real life but you get the idea. I loved the fact that there is the light peeking out of the clouds at the same time as this young person was out swinging on the swingset even as it was a pretty miserable feeling day.

Later this week will mark two years since my friend Lisa passed away after fighting cancer for three years. Lisa’s catchphrase, you might call it, was “its all in there.” We hold both the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, all of it...its all in there.

That’s what I love about the Psalms - throughout the Psalms we get the full range of human emotions, sometimes multiples in the course of a single Psalm. There is anger and wrath and fear and even hatred but there is also love, forgiveness, rependance, hope, courage and joy. A church member shared with me years ago that he went to the Psalms daily because, as he was the full-time caregiver for his wife, he could find a Psalm to speak to however he felt on a given day. Deep wisdom indeed.

Psalm 36 is one of those. Psalm 36 goes back and forth between the “wicked” (or “heedless” in Fischer’s translation) and the “good” as well as speaking of God interwoven. All of them exist together in this Psalm. The writer speaks of the ways of the heedless at the start and then moves to speaking of the goodness of God and then on what it means to be in the presence of the unsayable (Fischer’s word) holy One. Listen to how Fischer translates verses 7-9

How precious is your kindness!
And those who seek your wide wings' shelter-
They will be satisfied with your provisions
They will drink the delights of your streams
For you are life's wellspring
You are the light within the light

Beautiful. Just beautiful. Its all in there, isn’t it?

That’s what I also love about the movies. I love that some movies are pure “turn off your brain” escapism. I love that my son and I can watch the Fast and the Furious movies (with full cognitive dissonance of the sexist tropes throughout) and enjoy watching cars and people do completely impossible stunts (including going into space). I love that movies can mark key moments in life such as the movie my wife and I saw the day that we got engaged (to her surprise that day) or how my family and I felt when the snap happened at the end of Infinity War. I love that movies can take me to places that I will likely never get to go (space, galaxies far far away, or to lands of fantasy of elves, dwarves, wizards, and hobbits). I love that movies can also take me into stories that I need to hear and learn from like I wrote yesterday of Schindler’s List or of others like The Mission, I Saw the TV Glow, or Just Mercy. I love that movies can bring me closer to people I’ll never have the opportunity to know such as Selma, Hidden Figures, Malcolm X, or Gandhi. I love that movies can help me laugh hysterically, cry deeply, and push me to action. Again, its all in there.

But most of all what I love about the Psalms and about movies is that they push me beyond myself. The Psalms have pushed me to grow in my understanding of my emotions, to be able to not only understand them but express them. They bring me into the lives of others and help me share my own story. Films the same - they can be for escapist entertainment yes but they need to be that which also help us to engage the world more thoughtfully, openly, and honestly.

So there we are...a week with the Psalms at the Movies.

Sanctuary

On an unrelated note...Friday afternoon, I needed to go for a walk after hearing about the events in the White House and so Scout and I headed out on one of our regular trails. I don’t normally listen to music while walking but I needed some

Carrie Newcomer

and as I came around to my favorite tree (the “hand tree”), the playlist (on shuffle) came to her song “Sanctuary.” It was a beautiful moment of connection as I took in the warm sun, leaned against the tree, and looked up at this beautiful hand within a tree reaching upwards. The tree is truly a sanctuary place. A video of a live performance of the song by Gary Walters on piano and Carrie singing is below the photos.