The 23rd Psalm is among of the most beloved of Biblical texts. Ministers, priests, rabbis, and above all chaplains are asked to recite this poem countless times over the course of their careers. It’s often the words requested by people facing life’s harshest, most fearsome, and devastating challenges: natural and manmade disasters, serious illness, and, most importantly, death. In other words, times not unlike the ones we now find ourselves facing.
I have always felt great affection for this psalm. For one thing, it had been my father’s favorite piece of scripture. While not a devout believer, he found so much meaning in this text that my mother embroidered a version of it which hung in our home for many years. After my parents’ passing, it came to reside in the home of one of sisters as a tribute both to my mother’s love for my father and my father’s love for this psalm. It was also the only text my father requested when the time came to plan the memorial service for my mother and was a central element of the memorial for my father several years later.
Given the enduring affection so many people have for the 23rd Psalm, what is the special power of this 2,500 year-old prayer? Unitarian Universalist minister Robin Landerman Zucker describes the 23rd Psalm as being like a “portable shrine — universally treasured and invested by even self-proclaimed rationalists with a power deeper than intellectual argument or reason.” While we may reject the Bible and the personal God of our childhoods, she writes, this text somehow retains a power to comfort us nevertheless.
Perhaps that’s why this psalm has so often been revisioned by modern translators seeking to reframe its images of healing and hope for believers and non-believers alike.
For many people, the patriarchal language of the original text, including “The Lord” and the reference to the divine as “He,” may not only be challenging, but hurtful as well. Fortunately, there are contemporary renditions of this text which substitute language and imagery which may more effectively convey to us its profound spiritual wisdom.
For example, there’s the marvelous version of the 23rd Psalm created by the great Jazz composer and musician Bobby McFerrin. Dedicated to his mother, this rendition begins with the traditional reference to the divine as “the Lord,” but quickly moves to language reflective of the sacred feminine. “She restores my soul,” McFerrin tell is, “She rights my wrongs,” “She fills my heart with songs,” and, most movingly, “She said She won’t forsake me. I’m in her hands.”
Speaking about his mother, McFerrin says that she was the driving force in his spiritual education and that he wanted to express his appreciation for her love and her teachings. He also says he was inspired by the experience of reading the Bible one morning thinking about God’s unconditional love, about how we crave it but have so much trouble believing we can trust it, and how hard it is to even understand this kind of love. “And then I left my reading and spent time with my wife and our children, he says. “Watching her with them, the way she loved them, I realized one of the ways we’re shown a glimpse of how God loves us is through our mothers. They cherish our spirits, they demand that we become our best selves, and they take care of us.”
For me, one of the most important changes McFerrin made to the original text occurs at the beginning of his version. While the King James text starts “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,” McFerrin’s version proclaims that in the presence of the divine “I have all I need.” In our heart of hearts, there is so much all of us want. But perhaps more than anything else what we truly need is the feeling a sustaining presence of some kind in times of crisis and despair. A presence, sacred or human, that we can count on to embrace us, guide us, and dwell with us in our pain.
Commenting on this aspect of McFerrin’s version of the 23rd Psalm, Robin Landerman Zucker asks “Who among us does not need a companion to walk with them in the shadows? To lead them beside still waters when the world churns like a whirlpool, or to quench their thirst when they’re in the desert?” And what better image to associate with this loving companion, guide, and healer than a mother with her children? This image is one even the most ardent atheist might find comfort in, an image reflecting what we Unitarian Universalists call the “Spirit of Life and Love.”
Of course, the idea of a Divine Mother as a healing and consoling presence is far more accessible to us than the traditional idea of a heavenly “Lord” who rules the universe from afar. While it’s hard for many of us to identify with that exalted and rarified kind of divine love, we can easily relate to the image of a mother nurturing and protecting her children. Not only is it easier for us to imagine receiving a mother’s unconditional love and care when tragedy enters our lives, but also of manifesting that kind of caring and nurturance for others coping with profound loss and deep grief.
UU minister Forrest Church observed in his book Love and Death, written as he was dying of cancer, that while life may not be immortal, the love we have given and received in this lifetime is immortal. “Love is death’s measure,” he tells us. “Not only is our grief when someone dies testimony to our love, but when we ourselves die, the love we have given to others is the only thing death can’t kill.”
Such love, fully and freely given before we die, is the best way we can comfort others in our absence. And they will surely need that comfort, a thought brought poignantly home to me a few months ago watching an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. It was a segment featuring an interview with the actor Keanu Reeves. Reeves, viewed by many of his fans as a sort of mystic, lived up to his reputation very well that evening.
During the interview Colbert posed the following question to his guest: “What do you think happens when we die?” After reflecting for a moment, Reeves replied with an answer that moved both Colbert and many in the audience first to a moment of stunned silence, then to tears, and finally to a standing ovation. “I know that the ones who love us will miss us,” Reeves said. If there’s a better answer to the question “What happens when we die?” an answer we need no proof for other than our own experience, I can’t possibly think of a better one than that the people who love us will miss us!