Sabbath Devotional: The Psalm of Tumbleleaf

I took my senior capstone course with Kim Johnson on the devotional lyric, and one of our earliest units was reading through all 150 Psalms in less than a week. It was mind-boggling for me. I had read pieces of Psalms, but never the whole set all at once.

What struck me most was how contradictory they felt. How wide and various the range of emotions I found in them. And, in fact, the largest hunk (apparently scholars estimate almost one in three) were lament psalms, prayer poems full of grief, anger, fear, jealousy, resentment, doubt.

As a young, doe-eyed undergrad, I was stunned that something so unsettled and unsure could be both beautiful and sacred. Sacred enough to be in the Bible. Sacred enough to be read and studied and felt alongside Psalm 23, 46, 150, etc. for thousands of years. I chewed on that for months, considering whether I'd have the guts to challenge God, accuse God, doubt God, and still call it prayer. Or poetry. I wasn't sure I would, or that I should.

I studied Psalms again in my doctorate degree. Psalm translations became a huge genre in 17th-century literature. One of the earliest large-scale literary works written by a woman in the English canon was Mary Sidney's Psalm translations. I read those over a week, too. I was pregnant at the time, and I was so moved by the way she described the quickening, the beam-like way God laid out every vertebra. Mary imagined a God who knew her most intimate experiences, the making and unmaking of bodies through pregnancy and birth. And she wrote that intimacy into her Psalm.

During the darkest period of my life, I did not think about the Psalms. I didn't think much about praying, either. I assume I prayed, but I don't remember for sure.

I know that someone told me I ought to pray, and I felt very angry about it.

“To what end?” I remember thinking.

To ask for something impossible when I was so trapped and powerless — God felt too cruel. To thank God for my blessings — impossible. The words lodged in my throat. To say what I was actually thinking, I couldn't do it in company. It would be a stream of profanities, sobs, and desperate pleas to break the teeth of everyone who had hurt my family.

How could you possibly call that prayer?

As things finally began to resolve, I wrote a Psalm. My first Psalm, and my first real attempt at real prayer in the midst — and after a month — of very deep sorrow and terror. It went like this:

A note to the Conductor, The Psalm of Tumbleleaf:

Glory be to God for unmade beds

and the toddler cocooned in our sheets

(When did he come here?)

And hallelujah for a lazy morning

where dust ambulates the east window

and the boy curls into us and sighs

and we sigh

and God is good

And.

God, what the hell?

If the expletive is off-putting, I do sincerely apologize. Please forgive me. I don't share this bit of writing to suggest either that it was good or right.

Rather, what I am trying to say is that it is actually a very hard thing to say real things, and perhaps even harder to say them in prayer. And love or hate the Psalms, they do exactly that.

That combination may be disconnecting. It can feel jarring and strange and messy. Irreverent even. But I sincerely believe it is also sacred.

I believe in a God who is mighty. I believe in a God who does not need to be shielded from our sincere emotions, our actual feelings, our most intimate astonishments.

And I believe in the Psalms. Not simply that they are true, but that they are good. It is good to feel what you feel, and to trust God to hear it. It is good to turn your words upwards, even when they are harsh, or hurt, or ugly.

If you have been having a hard time heaving your heart into heaven, try a Psalm. Read them this week. Find some translations. Better yet, write your own. It might not be beautiful. But if you find the courage to say one real thing, Selah.

…

PS: I hope you'll also forgive the very praiseful Psalm song I've linked to, which does run a bit counter to what I've written here. As it turns out, it's quite hard to find a lament Psalm put to beautiful music. And, well, I love this arrangement of Psalm 23. But do please feel very invited to add any psalm arrangements or translations you love in the comments!

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Sarah Perkins is the peaceful root director at Mormon Women for Ethical Government.