A Psalm a day, the Hebrew way

Psalm 121 (NIV)

¹ I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot slip—
    he who watches over you will not slumber;
⁴ indeed, he who watches over Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord watches over you—
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
⁶ the sun will not harm you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all harm—
    he will watch over your life;
⁸ the Lord will watch over your coming and going
    both now and forevermore.

Some thirty-five years ago while I was still a student and struggling to get a grip of the Biblical languages, I took it upon myself to lighten up the lunchtime atmosphere in the University of Aberdeen’s King’s College Refectory by introducing some dirge-like singing.  I should have known better.  A few weeks later the Year-book was published, and under my photograph there was this epitaph: Ken MacKenzie — ‘A Psalm a day, the Hebrew way’.

But I still love the Psalms, and perhaps unsurprisingly, one of my favourites is Psalm 121.This is a Psalm that calls us to worship and affirms the goodness of God. It speaks of movement, and hints at encounter. But first and foremost it takes to do with relationship – our relationship with creation and with the Creator.

In recent times I have borrowed the title ‘I to the Hills’, for a project exploring the ‘Spirituality of Place’. Later this month the painter John Lowrie Morrison, the fiddler and composer Paul Anderson, the Irish poet Francy Devine and myself will be publishing a book: ‘In the Footsteps of Colm Cille’ which focuses on the Island of Iona. 

Here are a few lines from one of Francy’s poems in the book, entitled ‘Encounter on the Way to White Strand’:

“You let me teeter along

the ledge, never attempting

to entice me over to your side

yet somehow letting me know

I would be caught if I stumbled.”

PRAYER:

Eternal and Ever-present God
High and Exalted yet wholly down-to-earth
May all who lift their eyes to the hills
find in your creation their Creator
through Jesus Christ our living, dying, risen Lord,
AMEN