Sunday Morning Meds--Lifetime's singing

“I will sing to the LORD all my life; 

I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.” 

Psalm 104 

When Anchee Min, a Chinese-American writer, stood in some huge hall in Los Angeles, the place must have felt like Babel. With her, 40,000 immigrants were being naturalized. Each of them, devoutly versed in his or her native tongue, was trying to speak strange English words. But when the music started—“Oh, say, can you see. . .,” none of them could get the first line out, she says, because they were crying and laughing and smiling. “We knew what it was like to be an American,” she says. “It was to be allowed to be human, to be ourselves.”

I have no desire to mix faith and politics here, but when I heard her tell that story I couldn’t help but think of this line from Psalm 104—the poet’s pledge, his promise, that he will, as long as he lives, sing God’s praise. And I’m thankful for the Psalms—all of them, the ones that pour their hearts out in anguish as well as those pageants of praise like 104, songs that make glorious promises no mortal can really keep.

Yesterday, the news was all over the media—people who live in the rural Midwest, especially here in the upper tier of states across the Great Plains—live longer than almost any other block of populace in America. What’s more, that new Harvard study shows longevity by zip code. Here’s the startling findings: the county in which I live ranks among the top ten in the nation. Men and women in Sioux County, Iowa, live longer than 99% of the folks in the United States.

What I’m thinking when this line of his echoes in my mind is that the psalmist’s grand pledge is even more difficult for someone like me to offer because “all my life” is statistically longer for me than it is for most people. Can I say this with the Psalmist—that I’ll sing praise as long as I live? I don’t know. What I know well is that I don’t always feel like singing.

My mother-in-law, a lifelong resident of Sioux County, Iowa, now 86 years old and suffering, would just as soon die as live. But her anguish—what seems her resignation—has little to do with whether or not she is praising God. A lifelong believer, she’s simply ready to leave these cornfields. Even though the wondrous machine that is her body doesn’t want to run any longer, that broken condition does not, in any way, belie her praise. What I’m thinking is that she may not be singing, but she’s still more than anxious to go home.

There are times in one’s life when the baritone gravitas of Psalm 90 is simply the best of bromides. I know that’s true. But there are others—the birth of a healthy baby, for instance—when the lungs of a man and a woman simply aren’t spacious enough to contain the praise. There is a time for lament, says the preacher, and a time for song.

And Psalm 104 is sheer praise—no spin, no marketing. I don’t think the psalmist is trying to sell anything to you or me or the guy down the block. His wide-angle lens surveys the immensity of God’s world, and he can’t help but sing, and pledge to keep singing for all of his years. I think I know that feeling, even if I’ve not written the song. Not yet.

I’m thankful for the gift of faith and the realization that though I won’t always feel like singing, God almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth, will never leave me alone. And that’s cause for praise, no matter how long I live.