For twenty-five years (according to my journal), I have started my day by reading Psalms. Every month, loosely obedient to St. Benedict, I make my way through the 150-song psalter.

I read the old King James version (mainly) and try to read in the monastic way, not unlike the way my uncle Harold did at the breakfast table: slowly, reverently, audibly.

It’s a good way to start the day. It’s a crap way.
I love the Psalms. I hate the Psalms.

I hate them for exposing my motives, my secrets, my resentments.
I love them, for they fathom my darkness, my fear, my desire for security.
I condemn them for their paternalism; I delight in them for their humanism.
I spurn them for their violence and vengeance in the name of God;
I understand them for the same.

Whatever you throw at them will stick. Fire any kind of emotional missile at them, it’s absorbed. Tell them your hateful, vengeful thoughts, every cruel wish, they’ve heard it all before, and worse.

Wonder at their beauty, their quintessence of phrase, their turns of tone,
ride their crescendos of hallelujahs over the hills of praise, then,
plunge into some fiery abyss, choking on their burning words.

You want a ruthless God, a hungry-lion God, a John Wick, Mad Max God? He’s here in all his jealous, furious, warriorlike might, slaying your captors, your enemies, while the dogs lick blood from your shoes.

You want a tender, merciful, consoling God? She is here, holding you, reminding you of your worth: her full attention on your naked, breathing body, her loving thoughts of you, more than all the grains of sand.

You want a heartbroken God? Lead a thankless life.
You want a happy God? Be kind, feed the poor.
You want a joyful God? Open your ears to the cries of the world.

You want an ear for your anger? a hiding place in a harsh night? a blunt reminder of the brevity of life? a target for your curses? a room for grieving? green grass for beauty? still waters for serenity? want to fling taunts, hurl barbs of doubt in God’s face? want to return, hat in hand, and be welcomed as though you’re God’s own child? Done!

These are purgative prayers that cut an X in your thigh,
suck out the venom surging toward your brain.
These are praiseful poems that arrest the self-idolizing ego, then
call out: come, with your torn and battered and wildly contradictory faith.

Read these poets through the lens of politics and shudder at their insight.
Read these poets through the lens of culture and wonder at their modernity.
Read these poems through the lens of earth-care and grieve the groaning of our planet.
Read these poems through the eyes of Christ and enter his wounds, his suffering love.

In every abyss, every cry, every agonized why? in every shout of joy, in all of it, the Psalms simply say, God is.

Take them as you will, they care little for your arguments, your intellect, your ontology; they only report an entanglement with an I Am within and beyond creation. An entanglement that speaks to your heart, your oh-so-human heart.

 

 

The lesson of Monday’s Canadian election, for every leader and every party, was and is humility.

For Pierre Poilievre, mere months ago, comfortably gliding to become our Prime Minister, proud of his attack-dog status, his flair for stirring his base and chaffing his detractors, unbowed by Parliamentary censor for his “wacko” rebellions, too often reminded me of a man mired in ego who finds pleasure in spectacle. Personally, I don’t know if this is fair. This, however, appeared to be his public/political persona.

And it reminded many of the “leader” to the south. While Poilievre clearly isn’t Trump, he mimed the condescending stylings of Trump, his addresses cloudy with slogans and nicknames. Fox News carried and applauded his “apple-eating interview” (CBC called, the “orchard overture”), which was recorded and promoted by the Conservatives (T-shirts still available). Now, having lost his own seat, he’s stewing in the consequences of that compote. (This may have been the election Erin O’Toole would have won.)

I’ve found this to be true: that there are no paths to humility except humiliations recollected in seclusion, pondered in self-honest serenity. Mr. Poilievre has an opportunity here.

While humility does not yet appear to be in Poilievre’s vocabulary (I scanned the transcript of his concession speech), Mark Carney mentioned humility six times.

“I am going to begin with the value of humility and by admitting that I have much to be humble about. Over my long career, I have made many mistakes, and I will make more. But I commit to admitting them openly to correcting them quickly and always learning from them.”

And this:

“There is also, for me, …humility in recognizing that [while] many have chosen to place trust in me and the Liberal Party, millions of our fellow citizens preferred a different outcome.”

It would seem Prime Minister Carney has noted that the popular vote between Liberals and Conservatives was virtually a tie. Sadly, in my view, his victory came at the expense of the NDP (as well as the Bloc Québécois).

And the NDP, whose platform I support, who I voted for, has now lost official party status. And Jagmeet Singh has resigned. Enough humility to go around for all of us. (Not to mention the Green Party.)

Nevertheless, it was heartening to hear what these three leaders said in their post-election speeches, that, unity must eclipse partisanship. Perhaps this is Trump’s unwitting gift to Canada.

Those who wish to stand out through veiled or unveiled arrogance are all the same. It’s humility that differentiates, that stands as a light on a hill. And it’s humility that saves us from our failures and allows us to rise again, together.

There’s a kind of exhibitionist vanity that attracts and fascinates the collective eyes of our culture; humility, however, adds beauty to community and to our creation, because it draws attention away from ego to the transcendent Mystery of interconnection.

To riff on a quote by Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard, humility is the ability to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if love, kindness, compassion, did not exist.

My friend, and unassuming mentor, Mary, calls this obedience to the unenforceable.

Sister Joan Chittister OSB, said,

“Humility, the lost virtue, is crying to heaven for rediscovery. The development of nations, the preservation of the globe, the achievement of human community depends on it.”

 

 

May those who sow in tears,
reap with shouts of joy. Psalm 126

threatening shadows
a stab of deep pain
the clock’s constant warning
endings mounting like thunderheads
the hard rain,
a compression of tears

then, the perfumed damp of dawn
a bridge breathing an outline
the half-wheel of sun
a hum without menace
the day unhurried, the day entire
the shouts,
a mosaic of music

 

 

Today, I’ll walk, without fear, to the Good Shepherd Anglican Church, and freely make my way through the Stations of the Cross.

In the West Bank, indigenous Palestinian Christians, should they have applied for the few permits available, and gone through the indignity of interrogation, will brave the heavily armed checkpoints, the ritual abuse, and should they escape being arbitrarily being turned back, they’ll worship in Jerusalem, at Christianity’s most holy site. And despite the diminishing numbers of Christians left in the militarized West Bank, despite the horrors, the razing of Gaza, they will pray. For Easter is a time of hope, the timely message that life defeats death. It’s a profound act of resistance in the face of an overwhelming occupying force.

A week before Easter week, as the Israeli “Defence” Force bombed another “humanitarian safe zone,” we marched, we chanted.

What do we want?
Ceasefire.
When do we want it?
Now!

Is this not the most reasonable of demands, a simple request not to be killed?

How many children have to die?
Before you call it genocide.

We chanted for the boy in Gaza, who, when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, said, “Children in Gaza do not get to grow up.”

In our thousands in our millions
We are all Palestinians

Empathy is the ability to wear the clothes, enter the home,
listen to a mother tell the story of her child whose heart burst
from the deafening sound of a 2000 lb. bomb.

Netanyahu you can’t hide
We charge you with genocide

In Hitler’s Germany, the billboards read, “The Jews are our Misfortune.”
In Netanyahu’s circle, the refrain is heard, “There are no innocents in Palestine.”
…and just like that, genocide is justified.

From Canada to Palestine
Occupation is a crime

Slowly, Canada has been reckoning with the atrocities of its colonialist past.
140 years ago, came the North-West Resistance, and Ottawa
looked to the west and hanged Louis Riel for treason.

In Palestine: mass expulsion 76 years ago, leads to 55 years of occupation,
and the creation of the largest open-air prison in the world,
where the IDF regularly “mows the grass,”
and we wonder why a “gang” came to power?

And today, even as the ICJ and the ICC call out the war crimes, name it genocide, Canada still supplies the “settler-colonial” regime (UN) with military goods (see Ploughshares Feb. 24).

(In yesterday’s Canadian Election debate, “Poilievre said the focus should be on defeating Hamas and taking on Iran. He then pivoted to “the rampaging riots targeting Jewish communities” in Canada, an apparent reference to pro-Palestine protests.” Carney wasn’t much better. Only Singh seemed to catch the gravity, and called Canada’s treatment of Palestinians “frankly, disgusting”. And added that Carney has not “acknowledged that what’s going on in Gaza has now clearly become a genocide”)

Every time the media lies
Another child in Gaza dies

I’m guilty. Before reading the 75-year history (by both Jewish and Palestinian historians), I dismissed it as all too complicated.

A willfully ignorant Western media, where all discussions begin with October 7, is convenient for the empire.

The heart that mourns for Palestine, grieves for Gaza,
aches for the West Bank, must also break
for the people of Israel.

It’s the oldest tribal story: the oppressed forget their history,
become the oppressors, become synonymous with their victims,
and lose their soul.

And we are enablers. Weapons suppliers. When the nations of the world (in order, United States, United Kingdom, France, India, Canada, Italy, Serbia, Netherlands) support the live-streamed erasure of an ancient people and their land, deal with the greatest moral issue of our time through political tinkering, the globe stands self-condemned. The earth itself must groan for liberation.

The people who march understand futility.
They chant to preserve some moral fidelity.

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