My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”
More anguish and woes. There is a lot of anguish and woe in this section of psalms. It feels like too much for me. In fact, it it too much for me. But looking around, there is more than enough anguish in my immediate family, my community, my country, my world. Rather than thinking of these pleas as just for me, perhaps I can share the prayers when I read. Pray them for the woes of my sick loved one, my unsettled town, the victims and families of violence, pandemic, economic ruin. I can read a psalm and pray for the homeless, the orphans, those with no one to pray for them. When I’m feeling like I’m sufficiently woeful and prayed up, I’ll read the psalms and pray for someone else’s woes. There are enough to go around.
The accompanying reflection for this section of psalms is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer and asks us to think about what trials tell us about the times we live in, the time between Christ’s resurrection and whatever comes next, whether that’s Christ’s literal return to earth, or my joining Christ’s world at the end of my days.
I’m reminded of a community breakfast I had the honor of working for years. It was full of some of the community’s most down-trodden and broken people. We served nearly 200 people twice a month. And yet you could find glimmers of hope and love in the midst of that crowd. I am not suggesting that this group of humanity was somehow more grateful because they were being served, or were any less grateful because they were homeless. But I was always struck when they found or showed grace, despite their challenging circumstances. Their circumstances had stripped them of some of the pretense that I walk around carrying – which shoes should I wear for my walk, should I go to the store for a really good tomato, what about the crabgrass in my front yard, and should I try to go out for a walk even though it’s going to be 115 degrees. These folks were worrying about their next meal, and possibly the only meal they’d plan on for the day.
Because the layers of wealth and self-pretense had been stripped away, it felt to me like a thin place, a place where the curtain between humanity and God was very thin. As an observer to their raw humanity, it felt like the rawness contributed to the closeness of God. I got the same sense at orphanages in Kenya and Guatemala, and at the ICE detention facility in Oregon. God is in the muck. Sometimes, it seems the muckier the closer.
If I take time to look, I see God in the grime. Although I need to look, it’s easier to spot for me God in the darker, dirtier, harder places, than in the shiny, clean, frequently fake places (including churches). But while I can spot God in other people’s mess, it’s harder to feel that thin space in my own muck. I’m too busy in the middle of things, to look for a thin veil, let alone wonder what’s on the other side.
This morning, I’m thinking about the thin places where I’ve most viscerally felt God, and how they’re most always grimy. I’m thinking about the thin veil in my world and God’s kingdom right there. The muckier the better.
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