On Tuesday evenings, several of us in the local chapter of the International Thomas Merton Society get together for prayer, including the ancient monastic rite of Compline. Because of the liturgy we use for Compline, we always pray Psalm 91.
I don’t like Psalm 91.
Psalm 91, for me, is so upbeat as to be out of touch with reality. It includes verses like these:
Because you have made the Lord your refuge,
and the Most High your habitation,
There shall no evil happen to you,
neither shall any plague come near your dwelling….
[His angels] shall bear you in their hands,
lest you dash your foot against a stone.
I pray these words as my inner realist chimes in with “Yeah, right.†But I do pray them. That puts me in good company: people across faith traditions have prayed sacred texts for millennia. I’m sure most, if not all, have recited a text that did not fit their mood or mindset that day. Sometimes they’ve prayed texts that chafed against their whole outlook on life, as Psalm 91 chafes against mine.
So why even bother praying this way? Because it does so much good. Among other things, it orients us toward dialogue.
The key is what happens inside us as we pray words we don’t like. In this prayer, we allow the deepest part of ourselves to encounter wisdom outside ourselves, and the conflict between the two stirs up all sorts of things:Â
- For one thing, the conflict awakens us to the fact that we—our feelings, our concerns, our schedules—are not all there is. We recall, instead, that we are part of a larger flow, which allows us to put our place in the universe in the proper perspective. In other words, the praying of sacred texts fosters humility.
- For another thing, the conflict with a sacred text confronts us with the disturbing possibility that God, life, other people, the universe are not exactly the way we understand them. This brings us to the mindset of I don’t know. The more I realize what I don’t know, the more curious I become about what you know, because together we might understand more clearly.
That curiosity, that realization of our own incomplete knowledge, drives us into dialogue with one another.
Have you prayed sacred texts as part of your practice? How have they changed you? Use the Comments function below to share your experiences.
I have prayed many a prayer that didn’t settle well with me. But I am usually aware that my PERSONAL issues are not as important as those of the larger community. Sometimes I allow myself to get “offended” but some prayers, but I still participate in praying them. Yes, humility is an important part of that practice. In a time when we all seem to be focused on ourselves (an believe me, I can get into that frame of mind as quickly as the next person) it’s good to relax the ego’s hold on us to let God and other’s into my landscape. Then it’s not longer MY landscape but a shared place of hearing what others might have to offer to the dialogue which is life.
(A personal aside about Psalm 91: my grandmother died when I was nineteen. I had a strong connection with her. After many years of visiting monasteries I became fond of Psalm 91 because it was often prayed at Compline. On the day of my ordination a package arrived at the church. My aunt sent me a framed copy of Psalm 91 that used to hang in my Grandmother’s house. A complete surprise to me. And the Psalm chosen for the ordination was Psalm 91. To this day, that psalm connects we to a larger experience than my own.)