Commentary on Cyber-Psalm 7.0
Cyber-Psalm 7.0 is actually a “rerun” of Psalm 68: A threnody for 9/11. For me it was fruit of extended meditation on Psalm 68 and its implications. I went back and forth over whether I should make it part of the Cyber-Psalm series and ended up deciding that it is a good inclusion. Just as the Psalms of David have a wide range of emotions and voices this is a distinct personal voice in my own grieving over 9/11, the state of our screwed-up world, and the invisibility of God in our affairs.
I promise to put something cheerier up next week! In the meantime I am reaching a high stress point in preparations for two weeks of dictionary making beginning on Monday so I’ll sign off now and send this off to be posted first thing Friday morning.
Pax Vobiscum.
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Do you really want a second flood? Do you really want most of humanity to die, while a few of us are rescued in a new ark? God could of course do that. But he loved our fallen world, enough to send not an ark but his Son, not that the world might perish in a new flood but that people might believe and have eternal life. Don’t you think you should have the same attitude?
Peter, while technically your questions and the thoughts they provoke are accurate, I think they miss the point of a Psalm like this. Our heart’s questions and anguished cries to God to “do something” are just that (questions and cries), as they were with David.
Personally, I’m glad I don’t have to secondguess my questions or my statements of “God, couldn’t you just consider this drastic solution to our problems”. I know that I can dramatically cry out what I wish God would do, with open hands that trust (1) God knows best and He can see all the implications of my grand idea that I’m not thinking rationally through and (2) even though I might be desperately crying for relief in a form that is not totally logical or even unwise, my heart will continue to trust, i.e. it may be a desperate cry, but it is not a final demand (such as God, “If you don’t deliver us in this way, I will not be able to trust you any more.”
I’m not sure if you are being serious or teasing here (or a little of both), but it pushed a sensitive button for me. I remember telling a friend once, who had a hard time with my emotional way of walking in faith with God, “I feel like you would hate David, think he was neurotic and have a heyday criticizing his Psalms if he were here instead of me as your friend.”
I tend to overreact on this topic (so please forgive me if I’ve misunderstood and run with your point in the wrong direction) mainly because so many people have criticized, analyzed and misunderstood my words that sound “untrusting” or like I think I know better than God, but which really come from a heart of trusting God no matter what I don’t understand and no matter how much God doesn’t intervene in ways I’d like.
Oops, sorry, Lingalinga–I forgot again that long comments are supposed to be posts on my own blog! Sometimes I am a very slow learner
When I say “David” above, I mean David, author of the original Psalms, not the one behind the CyberPsalms.
Peter, I’d like to respond to your comment first. I’m not advocating the complete destruction of mankind by drowning or a big boat. But metaphorically I think I was envisioning a decisive clear response on the part of our Creator in putting an end to the old world and ushering in the new. That is in essence what the second coming is about and Jesus’ description of it based on Daniel’s prophecy for example was in catastrophic terms.
Even in a kindler, gentler sense the Church believes in the same thing. Christians will be saved and the rest will be damned. If we take the most generous estimates of 1/3 of the world being nominally Christian than what we are saying is that most of the world is doomed to destruction.
I am answering quickly because of time constraints but I hope you don’t think I’m being flippant. To summarize I see the flood and ark of the Cyber-Psalm as metaphorical but behind them is a real possibility of wide spread destruction that is haunting.
Lingamish and Eclexia, thanks for your comments.
Eclexia, I can understand and sympathise with this psalm if it is intended in the same spirit as Psalm 137, as a genuine cry of despair from a desperate heart. From the little I know of your situation, I can understand how such a psalm would speak to you where you are. And I don’t want to detract from that.
But from another point of view I stand with those who find Psalm 137 morally repulsive, if taken at all literally, and I feel the same about Cyber-Psalm 7.0. After all killing infants by dashing them against the rocks is less cruel than letting them drown slowly in a new flood, even a metaphorical one.
Yes, God’s judgment is to come, and that will be cruel by my standards as well. But I don’t accept that 2/3 of the world is doomed to desruction. God is delaying the second coming because he doesn’t want to bring about this mass destruction, 2 Peter 3:9. The time will come when he waits no longer, as there will be no further advantage in doing so. But I don’t expect that to be soon (although I may be wrong). I expect first and pray for a great revival so that most people will be saved. I think it is unavoidable that some will be lost, but I may be wrong there as well. But, however I may feel in difficult times, I do not want to escape from the world and let it be destroyed.
In case you wonder, I am thoroughly rejecting the theology of a secret rapture of the church from an increasingly sinful world. Yes, there will be hard times at the end, but the church will not be rescued from them, instead it will have the power to be victorious through them.
I respect your viewpoint and largely agree with you. The bulk of 7.0 focuses not on the future but the present. This is a living hell for most of the world’s population. Exploitation, poverty, dischord, etc. are the norm not the exception. The cry of this Cyber-Psalm is that God would intervene and put a stop to the problems we as humans can not solve ourselves. Our family is reading Isaiah for devotions and you can sense Isaiah’s heart and God’s to rescue those who are being exploited in addition to judging those who are exploiting.
Fair enough. But perhaps it would be better to ask God to help us solve the problems, rather than simply erase them along with those who cause them and most of those who suffer from them.
Eclexia, I see the Psalms like you do. They are honest sometimes anguished reactions to our view of God who we know intimately and our view of the world which seems so hard. I’m trying to do that in some of these Cyber-Psalms: just say what I feel about the world but I do it out of reverence for and relationship with my heavenly Father.
Thank you both for sharing and provoking me on this topic.
Sorry, Peter, our comments crossed in Cyber-Space. Like you I try to be a part of the solution but it sometimes seems hopeless. Even so none of us are giving up.
Personally, I cannot even begin to reconcile in my head the extremes of the mercy of God as well as the extremes of what, to me, seems to be the cruelty of God. I can’t comprehend the extent of either side, let alone how they coexist. This is part of what “trusting God” entails for me.
At that same time, it is what makes space for me to be desperately and ragingly angry at injustice, to feel totally hopeless at times and also to be brokenhearted before God asking what I can do to make a difference in the lives of individuals (both those who are victims of injustice and those promoting injustice).
I don’t suppose I could ever rage to God about my enemies and cry out for their destruction if I did not know (1)that God himself rages at injustice and sin, while also being longsuffering, patient and intervening for the redemption even of the most horrific of people, doing the most horrific of evils; (2) that out of my anger and raging, I can trust Him to bring me back to a place of rest in His sovereignty as well as being humbled to the place of seeking mercy and compassion even for those who have harmed me or others and (3) that God is not a genie bound to “obey” my anguished cries for justice against those I see doing great harm to other people and the world, in general, that God created.
If I thought God would always “take my word on it”, I would be very afraid to ever cry out as David the Psalmist did. Even so, I do not do it lightly or frequently. I just do not fear or deny my anguished cries for justice, however imperfectly my heart cries out. I have to trust God to do with those prayers, according to His will and wisdom, as I do with the rest of my very imperfect prayers. Ultimately, as Bob McDonald said, I pray my heart’s cries, but trust God to be the one to carry out the justice I long for, in His way and His time.
Good post, Eclexia.
Your comments are an echo of Job’s lament. God only answered with questions of his own.
Oops, again! Will I ever learn? I think when I comment, I’m spouting off the top of my head. If I go to write my own post about it, I think too hard and take too long trying to make it say what I want to say, and it doesn’t and I never post it. In a comment, I’m responding from my heart without overthinking (and obviously without editing to cut out a bunch of words, although believe it or not, I really do try.) How do the rest of you manage to sound so profound in your comments with so few words?!?
No harm done. The blog is free and you are always welcome to fill it up with your own interesting thoughts. I’m more shrewd in that regard. If I put two decent thought together I usually cut them and turn them into a post so I can up my traffic.
And if you think Peter and I are profound, step next door and read our silliness about England and chocolate!