From the Chief Musician to the String Player (on Psalm 61)

This morning I came across a poem I wrote a few years ago in response to an act of friendship and concern on the part of a friend. I tweaked and tidied it up a bit (are poems ever really finished?) and maybe it will help someone today like his gesture helped me back then. Say thanks to a friend today for the small gifts of kind words and simple faith. Thanks, Ghost.

Yesterday a friend sensed in my distracted voice

over the phone

sadness and confusion

and sent a Psalm

number 61

written for the Chief Musician

(an inside joke)

and for a stringed instrument

(a shared love).

He knew

as I do, but sometimes forget, that we all long to cry out:

Hear my cry, God.

Listen to my prayer.

He is wiser than he lets on

for he knows what it really means to say:

I will call to you when my heart is overwhelmed.

I needed his prayers and this Psalm

and today he may need mine.

This is what makes us Church

the Body of Christ, broken yet unbroken.

It is this that leads us to the rock

higher than we ever thought we could reach.

Together and separately we seek refuge

a strong tower from the enemy

where we dwell under God’s tent and

huddle beneath his protective wings,

baby birds open-mouthed and hiding from the storm.

There we stay, sometimes hiding, sometimes peeking out.

Always enthroned in the nest of his hands.

Always seeking to be fed.

Always singing.