It is, like a rattlesnake rattle, designed to make
us recoil. The threat of pain will abruptly, even involuntarily change our
behavior. Everything inside of us screams that pain is to be avoided.
Not precisely so.
This morning's reflection was Psalm 137. It is,
perhaps, the single nastiest pericope in all of the Bible:
By the rivers of Babylon—
there
we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered
Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our
harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and
our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
‘Sing us one of the
songs of Zion!’
How could we sing the Lord’s
song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you,
O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my
tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember
you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.
Remember, O Lord, against the
Edomites
the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said,
‘Tear it
down! Tear it down!
Down to its foundations!’
O daughter
Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay
you back
what you have done to us!
Happy shall
they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the
rock!
This song of pain was created by the
exiled tribes of Judah, who were invaded, conquered and transported across
hundreds of miles of wilderness to Babylon. All that they held dear was
unreachable. The temple where they gathered to encounter and worship their God
was now forcibly abandoned. All that had been home to them was less than a dot
on the far horizon, and they had no reason to believe they'd ever see it again.
In fact, the writers and initial singers of this song would never make it back
home. It was lost forever to them.
If you are unfortunate enough to be a
member of an oppressed group, this poem's despair, anger and violent cry for
vengeance no doubt resonate within you. If you are, like me, in the cushy
position of being a to-the-manor-born member of the dominant sub-group of the
richest, most powerful nation in human history, maybe not so much.
Why would anyone go out of their way
to even read this, let alone reflect on it? Because it is healthy to do so. It
is good medicine.
Pain is an alarm. When your arm
hurts, you look at it, touch it, focus on it. You find the problem and do what
you can to fix it. You get help as necessary. You cry out.
The loss of capacity to feel pain is
among the most dangerous of afflictions. If your backside is on fire, you
should want to know about it before irreversible damage results.
I'm sure you're with me so far.
Here's what's going to be on the test:
•
avoiding painful injury = healthy
•
ignoring pain = unhealthy
My mom is slipping quickly away into
the darkness of Alzheimer's Disease. Last week I dropped by for a quick
visit/errand to my parents on my way to other things. My kids waited in the
car, wishing to avoid a painful emotional injury. I went in to lay out their
pills for the week, and found myself alone at the table with my mother. She
asked innocently enough if I did this sort of thing for other people. I looked
up, smiled and said "no, just for the two of you." She smiled and
said "that's very nice of you," and, looking into her pretty vacant
eyes, I realized she clearly had no idea who I was. At that moment, all
that had once been home to me was less than a dot on the far horizon.
It hurt.
When I got back to the car, I took a
deep breath and told my kids about it. They said they were sorry it happened
and reflected how much that must have hurt. I said "eh, I'm okay."
They both just looked at me in
disbelieving silence. Dae reached out her hand and touched my arm and said
"you know, Dad, it's okay if you're not okay sometimes, too."
Damn.
My kids are probably the holiest agnostics
I know. The injury had already occurred. All I was doing was ignoring the
pain.
We all, each of us, find ourselves
exiled at one time or another in life. These days, when I say I love my mother,
to be honest, I am mostly confessing a longing for something not quite captured
in all those family photographs. I wish I still could be living what we were
experiencing when that Instamatic shutter clicked, not the flat, boxed-in
replicas that are nothing more than aging paper and decaying chemicals.
Most of what I really feel these days when I look at that hollowing shell
of a human being is pity and unanswerable longing. How can I sing her favorite
songs? This wicked disease has carried us away. This awful place is a decidedly
strange land.
And where shall I direct my anger? At
the inanimate and inanimating buildup of deadening proteins in the
channels of her brain? At a society that wastes billions a day on stupid wars
and partisan name-calling while many among us rot from the inside out? Rest
assured, if I ever learn that Alzheimer's is a result of exposure to some
carcinogen (say non-stick or aluminum cookware) and some shadowy
corporate/agency-"they" KNEW about it, I will most definitely be
looking for little ones to dash upon rocks!
We all, each of us, find ourselves
exiled at one time or another in life. Feel the pain. Follow it to its source.
Recognize the timeless wisdom that included the likes of Psalm 137 in our
Bibles. Once the pain has arrived, it is best to acknowledge it, explore it and
sing it out loud. Once that nasty rattlesnake has bitten, it's the only
way to remove the poison.
Call this my Psalm 137.
Will you sing yours?
(Each Wednesday morning from
7:30-7:50, I host a time of quiet reflection at our church sanctuary in West
Bloomfield. A psalm is read, the very briefest of words spoken, and then a time
of quiet reflection and meditation is opened. It is a new part of my own faith
discipline that I want to share with others. All are welcome. Psalm
137 was this morning's offering.)
