Psalm 23 comes alive with new insight

A Psalm in troubled times

Psalm 23 was the recitation of refuge that I woke to say every night probably hundreds of times in my first term of boarding school, haunted by things only I could see and sounds only I could hear. Such was the menace of my disturbance that the first half of my second term was spent as a day student living with my aunt.

Psalm 23 however is like a rare diamond, which when put up to light has a colour too mesmerising for words, a cut by the craftmanship of divine providence, a clarity in message that is individualised in revelation to those who meditate on it and a carat weight of priceless value.

I say this because just under 5 months ago, I received a revelation that came at a time that I needed to understand how the Lord is my shepherd. With it came a calmness in my soul and an assurance that things would turn out right. Soon, I got a new job in the midst of a pandemic and the way it came about was just too amazing to describe.

Blog - The changing texts of religious meditation

New treasures in old mines

As I was engaged in a conversation this evening, I was persuaded to share my new understanding as a word of comfort. We were communicating by text on WhatsApp as I began to write what I thought I was going to share.

What transpired just blew my mind for as I was writing, some new insight came to me that I had never seen before, unveiling to the eyes of my understanding that it was as if I was now sermonising to both myself and the person I was chatting.

A Psalm of David. [KJV]

1.    The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2.    He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3.    He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4.    Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5.    Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6.    Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Doing waters and feeling pastures

There are a number of themes running through these 6 verses, repeated over and over again, whilst each successive verse reinforces the relationship between the shepherd and the sheep. I have before indicated that if the Lord is my shepherd, by inference, I would be His sheep and that is why we end up at the green pastures where the sheep can feed and the still waters where the sheep can peacefully drink.

I also find that there is the thread of what the shepherd does as a shepherd and for the sheep and what that does for the sheep and how the sheep feel. There is an anthropomorphic quality to these relationships, but please forgive my amateurish attempt at expounding this text.

Finding the recurring themes

Taking each verse, I address the themes.

1.    The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

Here, what he does is shepherd and by reason of that, I want for nothing.

2.    He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

Here, he does lead the sheep beside the still waters, a place of peace and refreshing, as the sheep lays in the verdant pastures they feed to their satisfaction unperturbed.

In King James’ English, the -eth suffix denotes a present continuous tense. So, read maketh and continues to make and leadeth as continues to lead. The job of a shepherd when the sheep are about is never left undone at any time.

3.    He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

As he leads the sheep in the right and sure path continuously, for that is what the shepherd does by profession, by duty, and by name. There, you see a form of still waters.

Where he continues to restore the soul bringing comfort, peace and assurance reads like a form of green pastures. An abundance of mental restoration means we are never left exhausted by any situation.

4.    Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

The still waters might get turbulent or the green pastures might be exhausted after a time of grazing. This would mean the shepherd has to herd the sheep to new green pastures and still waters.

The sheep are always led by the shepherd and the shepherd knows the many green pastures and still waters all around the wilderness to lead the sheep to, to ensure never want for provision of comfort.

Getting to the next green pastures and still waters might include traversing the valley of the shadow of death where dangers lurk from the sheep straying and brought back into the flock with the rod or where predators are warded off with the staff.

The shepherd, ever vigilant is with the sheep and the sheep should fear no danger or accident as the shepherd is there. In our lives, we also traverse difficulty, adversity, trials, tribulations and negative circumstances. The Lord with us will lead us out of it to new triumphs in life.

5.    Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Here we are, having gone through the valley of the shadow of death with the sheep, the new green pastures are a table set before us where our enemies can see but never assail us. The new still waters are the anointing of the head, succouring and empowerment with capacity. We can only thrive for we are in a place of joy.

We have become warriors, celebrating victories over situations, circumstances and issues in life.

6.    Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Yet, the table is just a place of transition for there is another possible valley of the shadow of death that the shepherd has to herd the sheep to, where the still waters are now goodness and mercy in all the days of our lives and the green pastures of the final destination is dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.

At this point, we are no more mere sheep, but people, living and enjoying the blessings of the Lord. Goodness being everything right, good and desirous for wellbeing, health, and a sense of contentment in not wanting for anything. Mercy in that there is no guilt or condemnation, we have been continuously led in the paths of righteousness from verse 3.

Thought Picnic: Are those blanks signs of depression?

Much talk no hearing

A few Sundays ago, I was in church and whilst I appeared to go with the flow, when it came to the sermon, I did not get anything of what the pastor had to say.

In the multitude of words, I comprehended nothing, besides the fact that he was speaking English – my thinking could not connect with what he had to say.

Somewhere along the line, he did ask if we were getting something out of what he had to say, I probably was in a minority not knowing his preaching style to be sure of how it worked for others.

Present and absent

It reminded me of a number of episodes in my academic life when I appeared to be present in class but not present in mind or objective.

There was one instance where I do remember drawing a complete blank. On reflection, I was going through some sort of crisis but there was no one I could talk to about what my experiences were to be sure if I could get help.

Lost without help

My parents would never have understood it, my father being a brain-box just would not have appreciated that I was attending class and not getting it, he would have had me off to vocational classes with the usual excoriating remark redolent of my slow development and my slow responses probably connected to my premature birth – who can say?

My mother would have had me visiting prophets, seers and marabouts trying to ward off evil, real or imagined, besides drinking copious amounts of holy water, some so rancid that it sickened to the pit of my stomach.

The effects of depression

This rotten mental block persisted for about 3 years, and eventually lost me 5 years of tertiary education after secondary school. I would have tortuously recited an interminable number of times Psalms in Yoruba over bowls, buckets or cups of water – it made life less than fun to live in every dimension possible.

I am yet to understand what I really went through; depression comes to mind, something we Nigerians have yet not begun to understand in the slightest.

Ignored emotional needs

Yet, we are under constant pressure of competition and comparison, expected to perform because every other encumbrance has been removed as tuition, board, sustenance, provision and many other parental responsibilities that have been equated to love meeting emotional need.

It was a dark time of my life and in all; it took the best part of 10 years to realign my course not having understood but taking religion and kept a stoicism about things that they will all turn out right.

Understanding the rhythms

These cycles of darkness and light have come and gone through what has become my story. At times, I am so sure of what I need to do and at other times even what I am sure of doing does not seem to produce the results that once came without much exertion.

I have a constant process of assessment and re-evaluation going on, hoping a Eureka moment will dawn on me and with that, the answers to the puzzles of frustration I have long endured.

Thankfully, this Sunday, what the man spoke about was very clear, easy to understand and useful – I need to renew my thinking again.

Thought Picnic: Appreciating emotional needs

Separating the morality from the need

I was involved in a discussion early this morning on the matter of relationships and infidelity with a good friend of mine and he suggested I espoused a perspective he did not really consider when he first got wind of the circumstance he shared with me.

I suppose there are people who will consider my views liberal and they probably are but within that thinking I hope to expose some fundamental issues that we fail to pay good heed to.

Now, in my view, relationships can be composed of any gender pairing, the matter of love is just too complex to be constricted to the moralisation that allows for a seemingly religious majority to tyrannically abrade those who do not subscribe to a particular norm.

Relationships are diverse

The norm can only be derived from the freedom of adults to do what to the participants is the pursuit of happiness and the freedom to associate for the emotional comfort each needs of the other.

From marriages, through civil partnerships to love affairs and casual encounters, there is every possibility that the emotional need is partly satisfied with a sexual encounter – I do not intend to moralise about that apart from say that innately we are all sexual beings after a sort too.

One can only feel for the pressures that companions are under when their partners are not near or a relationship is a long-distance one – much as the fondness and longing is there, either party for all the moral muscle they can exercise is not completely devoid of the need for a cuddle, an embrace, a listening ear and the unplanned encounter leading to error.

Provision is not love

Many can expect their partners to keep themselves but absence cannot be fully compensated for by reason of the bond that is not constantly renewed and rekindled with proximity, presence and physical feeling of your mate.

The theory is simple and valid that a partner who is highly-sexed might seek temporary succour not to establish a parallel affair but in casual encounters that some might call “sleeping around”, it is unfortunate, but in every sense natural and probably should be expected.

However, how the other partner deals with knowledge of that situation is a different thing and that brings me to another issue that needs a bit of analysis.

Too often, partners in a relationship tend to think provision is the equivalent of love, by extension; there are settings where the provider supposes the provision of shelter, food, education and clothing is the full expression of love to their children. The honest truth is that whilst it might be an expression of love it is fundamentally a responsibility.

The emotional need

Love in and of itself ministers to a more ethereal need which is to the emotions, to the feelings, in the expression of concern and in attention to needs that are rarely material.

Sadly, the warped use of provision as a substitute for love schools the thinking into a materialistic mind frame where the provider by listing the material things done automatically expects loyalty, love, chastity and obedience to be the purchased bundle they have acquired by money completely absent of emotional input.

That is not to say that material things are not good and needful but the foundation on which most relationships is based is emotional and to let that pale into insignificance by buying allegiance through gifts or nominal responsibility will not satisfy emotional longing and obligations partners have to each other.

Recovering our emotional quotient

The point is we need to discover better our emotional selves, recognise better the emotional needs of all our relationships; be they marital, familial, casual or any construct where those are intertwined to the pursuit of our mutual happiness and work to ensuring that our obligations are fulfilled.

Where such is not possible, then we need to appreciate that our moral rectitude might not necessarily be as strongly expressed in our partners, our inabilities to satisfy their immediate or long-term emotional needs might well mean they seek that elsewhere.

I will hate to see this read as a license to lasciviousness but the sooner we realise the needs of our humanity and the strengths individuals have along with the disappointments that might ensue, we will better be able to make the best of the times we have together and save many a headache or heartbreak.