Deliver Me: a Response To Psalm 59

this image is from http://typeandverse.com/lettering/psalm59/

Psalm 59 is another of those great cries for deliverance, for liberation from evil which occur throughout the psalter. But praying psalms like these must always give the Christian pause for thought. The psalmist here seems pretty sure that the enemy from whom he must be delivered is external, is someone else ‘out there’:

1. DELIVER me from mine enemies, O God: defend me from them that rise up against me.
2. O deliver me from the wicked doers: and save me from the blood-thirsty men.
3. For lo, they lie waiting for my soul: the mighty men are gathered against me, without any offence or fault of me, O Lord.

But for us it is not so clear. We know that the dividing line between good and evil runs, not down some political or national borderline, but right through the centre of every human heart. I cannot say to God that there is ‘no offence or fault in me’, and if I am to be delivered by the saving grace of God then that deliverance needs to start in me and with me before I turn my attention to anyone else, and so that is the turn and tenor of my response to this psalm.

As always you can hear me read the psalm by clicking on the title or the ‘play’ button’

These poems will all be gathered together and published on January 30th under the title David’s Crown. I am just working on the proofs now and there is already an amazon page for the book if you wish to pre-order it Here

LIX Eripe me de inimicis

The breach between my practice and my prayer
Exposes me to malice both without
And deep within. I’m only too aware

That I can’t pray this psalm, without some doubt
That I myself might be amongst the ones
Who run around the walls with greedy snout

And grudge if they’re not satisfied. My groans
In prayer to you are sometimes nothing more
Than my own dog’s desire for juicy bones.

Deliver me O Lord, and show me your
Patience and your mercy, set me free
Not from the sins of others, or the score

I sometimes keep of their iniquity,
But from my own deep-seated faults and failings,
From my false self, O Lord, deliver me.

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Despised and Rejected Christina Rosetti

Despised and Rejected Image by Linda Richardson

The poem I have chosen for December 11th in my Advent Anthology from Canterbury Press Waiting on the Word, is Despised and Rejected, a dramatic and challenging reflection on encounter with Christ by Christina Rosetti. You can hear me read this poem by clicking on the title or the play button. the image above, takes up the poems opening proclamation, was created by Linda Richardson.

Linda Writes:

There are some dramas you watch with dread. The Director lets you in on a secret that is unknown to the protagonist and you watch the drama unfold, knowing that along the way, you and the protagonist will meet at this awful moment. It was with this feeling that I began work.

When Malcolm invited me to show the images I made last year in response to Waiting on the Word, I decided to do a new art work for this poem as the one I made didn’t turn out well. But now as I come to write about it I hope you will forgive me for including it. The poem’s title is Despised and Rejected, so as a small gesture of redemption, it seems appropriate to include this work that I would otherwise have rejected.

The image is indelibly cut in two by a separating path of black ink from the top left to the bottom right. Throughout the image, Rossetti’s impassioned words weave about through the paths of ink and paint, but there, in the bronze paint at the top right of the image, like a smear of dried blood, is a cord. The cord is bundled and scrunched into the paint and travels in the opposite direction, to the bottom left of the image. The two paths meet at a cross. Art is like life, and the marks we make sometimes come from our deep subconscious, so as I return to this work I recognise the cord as something that leads out of a labyrinth. ‘Footsteps echoing like a sigh passed me by’, Rossetti says towards the end of the poem. And I am left with the question, ‘What opportunities of love do I miss when I am lost in the labyrinth of my mind’?

You can find  a short reflective essay on this poem, which draws out its many references to Scripture, in Waiting on the Word, which is now also available on Kindle

Despised and Rejected

My sun has set, I dwell

In darkness as a dead man out of sight;

And none remains, not one, that I should tell

To him mine evil plight

This bitter night.

I will make fast my door

That hollow friends may trouble me no more.

 

‘Friend, open to Me.’—Who is this that calls?

Nay, I am deaf as are my walls:

Cease crying, for I will not hear

Thy cry of hope or fear.

Others were dear,

Others forsook me: what art thou indeed

That I should heed

Thy lamentable need?

Hungry should feed,

Or stranger lodge thee here?

 

‘Friend, My Feet bleed.

Open thy door to Me and comfort Me.’

I will not open, trouble me no more.

Go on thy way footsore,

I will not rise and open unto thee.

 

‘Then is it nothing to thee? Open, see

Who stands to plead with thee.

Open, lest I should pass thee by, and thou

One day entreat My Face

And howl for grace,

And I be deaf as thou art now.

Open to Me.’

 

Then I cried out upon him: Cease,

Leave me in peace:

Fear not that I should crave

Aught thou mayst have.

Leave me in peace, yea trouble me no more,

Lest I arise and chase thee from my door.

What, shall I not be let

Alone, that thou dost vex me yet?

 

But all night long that voice spake urgently:

‘Open to Me.’

Still harping in mine ears:

‘Rise, let Me in.’

Pleading with tears:

Open to Me that I may come to thee.’

While the dew dropped, while the dark hours were cold:

‘My Feet bleed, see My Face,

See My Hands bleed that bring thee grace,

My Heart doth bleed for thee,

Open to Me.’

 

So till the break of day:

Then died away

That voice, in silence as of sorrow;

Then footsteps echoing like a sigh

Passed me by,

Lingering footsteps slow to pass.

On the morrow

I saw upon the grass

Each footprint marked in blood, and on my door

The mark of blood for evermore.

If you would like to encourage and support this blog, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!