You know my sitting down and my rising up.
You attend my thoughts from afar.
Your breath fans my road and my resting place.
My whole journey is known to You.
Before a word is on my tongue
You know it through and through.
From all sides You surround and fill me.
You lay Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful -
Too great for me to understand.
Oh, where can I go from Your spirit?
Where can I flee from Your face?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there.
If I make my bed in death, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn
And fly past the sea’s farthest end,
Even there Your hand guides me,
Your right hand holds me fast.
If I say, "Darkness has wounded me
And all the light is night,"
Even darkness hides nothing from You.
The night shines as the day,
For in You, light and dark are one.
Your breath was woven into me
In my mother's womb.
You are my inmost being.
I always dwell in You.
I praise You for the wonder of my life.
For my soul understands:
As are all Your works, I am awesome.
Every part of me lives in You.
Even as I was created in secret,
My body drawn from the clay of the earth,
You saw my new-formed self, my mortality.
And inscribed all my days with Your words.
How precious are Your thoughts.
How vast beyond belief.
Counted, they are more numerous
Than the grains of sand.
Let me wake up so I know myself one with You.
Slay the voices of my addictions!
Cleanse me of their self-negating hostility!
Or overwhelmed by fear and pain
I will forget what You are.
The oblivious speak of You, yet deceive.
In delusion, they abuse Your Awesome Name.
Do I not despise what is hardened against You
And abhor what turns away from You?
With loathing I face my addictions -
The enemies of my heart.
Search me, O God, and know me.
Examine my innermost thoughts.
Cleanse me of what leads away from You,
Awaken me and set my feet on Your path.
An interpretation based on the NIV, the ICEL and the JPS 1917 translation
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Elena, love your blog. So I'll share mine:
ReplyDeletehttp://anglicanoriginsdiscussion.blogspot.com/search/label/ministry
Blessings...
Thank you. It's great to be appreciated by someone like you who has a traditional, ministerial background. I often (mistakenly, it seems) assume that people who will appreciate my posts must be from as far in the outfield as I am.
ReplyDeleteElena
Elena, I often turn to Ps 139, and your rendering is one I will keep close. How fitting that I discovered it and your blog as I was working on a sermon + class series for my Universalist, liberal Christian church.
ReplyDeleteWhat I can offer by way of thanks is this link to the Community of Reconciliation, which makes its home at Washington National Cathedral. It's grounded in Benedict's Rule, but is not exclusively Benedictine or even exclusively Christian. The CoR has a physical presence in the Washington, DC, area, but also a dynamic online presence. As a Universalist with a Celtic Christian devotional practice, I stumbled in after deep studies of mythology, depth psychology, ubuntu, and hospitality and found in the CoR an ecumenical home for some of the things I'm working out in my personal path. Maybe there's something there for you, too.
Hi Sue, I'm slowly doing an addict's version of the entire psalter. Glad to know the ones I've posted are touching folks
ReplyDeleteAlso thank you so very, very much for the link. Especially timely with my recent life changes.
cheers,