Lesson 11: Should We Clean Up Ancient Prayers?

I'd like to talk about a sticky wicket for many people with regard to the modern use of psalms. Some people say that they don't wish to use psalms because they come from a culture that's warlike, violent, and patriarchal.

How can we say, "Destroy all those who oppress me" (Psalm 143)? Isn't this exactly the kind of thinking we need to be rid of? The kind of thinking we need to transcend if we're going to create a world of harmony?

The answer is yes, if you look at it from the level of public proclamation. Should we really be declaring, as Psalm 137 does: "Oh daughter of Babylon doomed to destruction happy the one who pays you back for what you have done to us. Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock."

It's not exactly acceptable stuff and it has caused great agony of conscience to many men and women of good conscience, who say that the psalms no longer represent the emotions we want our religion to embody.

This perspective has led to many attempts to revise, edit, and re-orchestrate the psalms. Perhaps this is necessary, but I would point out that as psalmody has always been intuitively understood in contemplative tradition, the psalms are not primarily vessels of public proclamation but vessels of interior work, psychological tools. The major purpose is confronting, acknowledging, and embracing the shadow.

As long as there is in human nature one dark corner of violence, one dark corner of jealousy, one dark corner of loneliness or abandonment deep within us, then the psalms are familiar and relevant. They are also deeply hopeful because they say, "Yes I've stood in this place; I've been here. You can stand in this place; you can be here. You can name the shadow."

Some of the most profoundly transformed Christians I know have spent a life struggling with the psalms and, through this work of prayer, confronting their own darkness at deeper and deeper levels.

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