Psalm Prayer – Julie Lonneman

I have a morning ritual before I get out of bed, typically before I open my eyes, normally prayed in the quiet of my heart with the help of my slowly awakening mind. I wrap it up by putting the well-known verse 24 from Psalm 118 into a statement of direct address: “This is the day that You have made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

This morning, with my eyes still shut, I ruminated for a time on that line. And what came up was something like this: “I wonder if there will ever come a time [God]—even just once—before I die when I utter this famous prayer-line and know in the core of my being that I actually am experiencing the overwhelming and overflowing awareness, appreciation, gratefulness, and joy that are commensurate with the profound truth and reality the psalmist’s words express?” I think about this a lot more now as the obvious—yet easy to ignore—reality seeps in, namely, that there are fewer days in front of my nose than there are behind my head (how many times have those who have been part of the H&H community heard me say that—given that so many of us represent the gray-headed vintage).

The thought didn’t come from a place in me that was self-judging and castigating, nor with a tone of self-accusation as if when I say these words every morning half-asleep, half-awake I am just going through the motions, being a hypocrite. No, that’s not it. It’s more that I have a holy suspicion that if we REALLY understood our creatureliness, REALLY understood every second of our lives that—as Georges Bernanos and Dorothy Day were fond of reminding us, tout est grace / it’s all grace—we’d wake differently, act accordingly. It’s all gift: this breath and this second and this breath and this second. And this feeling I have is a deep desire and a deep yearning to experience completely, and not merely seconds before my death, the convictional knowing that breaks open into a gratefulness and rejoicing that the Who-ness responsible for my being alive is due.

I suspect it’s not humanly possible. Regardless, I have long suspected it’s the new possibility toward which I am meant to aim my life. I have a sneaking suspicion that if I really understood the nearly inconceivable magnanimity of those few words, if I fully tasted and savored the awe and grace of being alive, I’d walk around shielding my eyes or weeping or laughing hysterically or falling to my knees or doing cartwheels or jumping in the air clicking my heels or stringing together like Christmas lights a long line of blinking “oohs” and winking “aahs.”

Whatever sin is, I suspect it grew up in the neighborhood nearest the intersection of NOT and APPRECIATIVE.

Rabbi Heschel wrote that it is gratefulness that make’s the soul great, that makes the man, woman, or child magn/animous, that is, a great soul. Merton wrote that ingratitude was and is the primal sin; that most everything that sours can be traced to being ungrateful, simply taking life for granted, ho-hum, yawn, been-there-done-that, whatever.

The most fully alive, the most noble and natural, the most human and holy, the greatest souls, the most genuinely grateful, and the most authentically joyful people, have become so by meeting the moment again and again by tending the seemingly simple, the small word of empathy, the little gesture of gratefulness, the not-so-random act of kindness, the common deed with uncommon presence or thoughtfulness or integrity or sympathetic solidarity or generosity or encouragement or being with someone in pain or love.

What greater gift can we bequest to other vagabonds than to be continually bowled over by awe, wild about gratefulness, and smitten with joy? After all, I’ve never met a self-made woman, man, or child. Have you?

ARTWORK: Psalm Prayer, Julie Lonneman, Used with permission. Find Julie’s work here.

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