The Psalmist
It may be strange to say that “ecstasy” is an endangered species, but the raw, native kind I mean seems in short supply – at least among us humans. We grow into a worrying lot, grow so mechanical, instrumental, preoccupied with so much: “what to eat, to wear, to do, to mend, and attend to.” So many story loops play in the head, forever cycling and recycling old cares and then ready-up new ones.
For many of us, that first draught of sheer wonder on awakening to the gift of light once more each day can, at the sound of the alarm, so easily get overcast by the burdens each life bears. The burden of endless real-life cares. But if no “ecstasy,” no vitality, no creativity, no energy to richly inhabit this living cosmos, this one and only singing planet of endless wonder. If no energy from the root, from the ground of being itself, we have no way to bear those cares that are ours and everyone’s.
When psalms surprise me with their music
And antiphons turn to rum
The Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soul…
~ Thomas Merton
Ecstasy stammered or whispered in praise is a mysterious dynamism empowering us to hold all cares in grace and trust. And the wellspring of such power is some mode of praise. Day by day, morning, noon, and night, praise, no matter what. Breath by breath, step by step, fear by fear, tear by tear: praise. No matter what. To Mystery, no matter who or what. Three masters of praise for these Anthropocene days have aided me and may likewise aid you: Merton, Teilhard, Berry – to whom I have given each his own Book of Hours. (See Our Books) And a symphony of songs besides. (Listen to Recordings here)
With these teachers of real-world praise, and Schola’s ever resounding song of the Spirit, may this very humble blog augument soundings of Mystery no matter what. And so a Blog for posting brief epistles of wisdom about the art of praising learned from many spiritual masters these many decades on. It is for me a new way to continue the practice of becoming what I have always longed to be: a Psalmist – a singer of boundless gratefulness in my many voices of lamentation, intercession, education, protestation, jubilation, and praise.
Join me as you can, if you wish. I have such gifts of wisdom discovered and learned to share.
The windows are open. Let the psalms fly in.
