Round Midnight

Psalm 30

        How many of you are afraid of the dark? I remember as a child my family of six briefly lived in a cracker box that somehow passed for a house. It was too small to be measured in square feet. Being the only boy, I had my own room. A bamboo curtain served as the door to my closet.  At night I would watch from my bed as every imaginary creature my mind could construct entered and exited that darkened space. I would turn from my closet and watch the shadows that danced just outside my window.  Some nights I would pray for a respite from my visions, a release which sometimes only materialized with the coming of the dawn.

        We all know I suffered from nothing more than the active imagination of a ten year old that spent too much time reading about the exploits of folks like the Grail seeking Sir Galahad or the hammer wielding Thor.  Fortunately I grew out of those ridiculous visions before I turned 30. But midnight is still the place where I encounter the active imagination of my soul.

“You have turned my mourning into dancing.” I never was much good at Hebrew and I wasn’t any better at Greek. My Spanish is pitiful, I flunked French and my adventures in Latin are probably the reason it is now a dead language.  But I love words. Perhaps this is why I am so enamored by verse 11 of Psalm 30. I know a more accurate translation would be, “You have turned my wailing into dancing” but thankfully some poet translating the New Revised Standard Version saw the power in substituting the word m-o-u-r-n-i-n-g.  It allows us to play with such powerful images as midnight and dawn as we struggle with the shadows that might still linger just outside our window.

As I read this Psalm Thelodious Monk’s haunting tune “Round Midnight” fill my head. It is a composition based on eleven notes, heard differently each time, always begging for closure and yet never quite finding resolution.  Likewise the Psalmist comes to us with a sonata written after many a sleepless night, only discovering harmony in the One who promises that the dawn can melt our discontent.

What haunts this poet? Does it really matter? The far more important questions are why is midnight to dawn sometimes the longest six hours of our day? How did this poet come to understand and embrace his mourning/wailing? How is she able to dance with the coming of the dawn?

I have always believed if you want to discover answers concerning the human psyche, it is best to learn from someone who is just a little bit crazy.  Walter Brueggemann, the best Old Testament scholar I know, has certainly experienced both the dusk and dawn. Because of his own “demons”, he comes to the Psalms in a way that invite both my left feet to the dance floor.

Brueggemann claims within the Book of Psalms we encounter three distinct categories of poems. There are the ones we experience regularly in our hymns. “For the beauty of the Earth” or “I will lift my eyes to the hills” are relatively harmless songs glorify God as the creator of the entire universe. Being folks who have chosen to live in paradise, we celebrate these poems on a regular basis.

A second category of poems often remain hidden from public view. They are dark stories which expose the frailty of the human spirit. “Help me God; I am waste deep in my own discontent.” “Rescue me God from those who would conspire to do me harm.” Psalms of lament expose the underbelly of our souls. They are desperate songs, filled with angst written by someone who has lost hope in everything but God. Sometimes that is not a bad place to be.

The Psalmist suggests that our chief dilemma is we live a circular rather than linear existence. We are always going round and round, trying to get back to the starting point before our troubles, before our dreams, interrupted what we thought was a pretty good life. But when we return to the starting point, when we live in denial refusing to believe anything is seriously wrong, we soon step back onto the road most often traveled. And the troubles and the dreams return. We can fool anyone in the daylight. But we can’t even fool ourselves round midnight.

 Psalm 30 is a step beyond this vicious circle. It is a song of new orientation.  That is a fancy way of saying our trials will be over only when we pick up some place other than where we originally started. Guy Clark sings about a woman searching for new orientation.

Standing on the gone side of leaving,

She found a thumb and stuck in the breeze.

She’ll take any ride that’s going close to somewhere, She can lay it down and live it as she please.

She ain’t going no where, she’s just leaving,

She ain’t going no where she can’t breathe in,

She ain’t going home, and that’s for sure.

Psalms of new orientation tell us we can never go home again. That is not exactly what we want to hear. We are comfortable at home. We trust being home after all home is home sweet home. It is our fortress, our savior, our source of all that is and all that will be. It is where we find our joy and delight…… most of the time. But home, the trusted familiar, often camouflages a season of ragged and painful disarray.  Retreating guarantees what always was might be all we can ever expect. Is that really all we desire? Will we forever remain comfortable with the shadows that disrupt our rest?  Or will we dare to turn to another source of salvation.

Considering the science of psychology is a little more than 100 years old it is amazing the conclusions reached by the author of the 30^th Psalm.  First, humans desire seasons of well being. But humans experience seasons of hurt and alienation often resulting in resentment and self-pity.   Then we are surprised, even overwhelmed, when joy breaks through the despair. The Psalmist identifies this as an act of God and makes a decisive move to live in the light in this grace. The Psalmist makes a radical leap from faith in himself to faith in something larger than she might ever have imagined.  This response moves the author from surprise to thanksgiving.

I believe with all my heart this is what brings us to the Lord’s Table.  Enthralled by the midnight of our discontent we desire our mourning to be turned to dancing. The body broken reminds us of our own brokenness. But each time the cup is lifted we are surprised by the gift of God’s grace. Going home is no longer a return to the expected but a journey into the new possibilities.  When we travel uplifted by the grace of God, we travel clothed with joy, we travel a new road, living a new life all to the glory of God. In our joy we are able to sing:

O God, shine forth into the darkness of my night.

O God, melt the frost that encompasses my soul.

Wake me to the dawn of a new day,

Filled with colors I have never before experienced.

You have turned my mourning into dancing,

And I will give you thanks forever.               Amen.