I want to share a poem that raised some interesting questions for me. It is Stephen Mitchell’s translation and adaptation of Psalm 1 from the original Hebrew.
Blessed are the man and the woman
who have grown beyond their greed
and have put an end to their hatred
and no longer nourish illusions.
But they delight in the way things are
and keep their hearts open, day and night.
They are like trees planted near flowing rivers,
which bear fruit when they are ready.
Their leaves will not fall or wither.
Everything they do will succeed.
Ending greed and hatred might be expected. What does it mean to ‘no longer nourish illusions’? The dictionary states illusions come from ‘falsely ascribing reality to what we see or imagine’. Nourishing suggests we are feeding these ideas we have. Is this some meta-observation that what we see around us is not real?
This is followed by the expectation that blessed people “delight in the way things are and keep their hearts open, day and night”.
In this time of issues such as racism, bigotry, and hatred, climate change, violence, and the attacks on democracy, what does it mean to ‘delight in the way things are’? What does it mean to keep our hearts open, day and night? Is that only for those who have grown beyond greed and hatred?
I’m putting this in an essay because I don’t have the answers, only some tenuous ideas. Could we be encouraged to disengage from doomsday scenarios and focus on the good that still exists? To recognize that the pending doom is an illusion, and continue to work for that brighter future? I’m open to suggested interpretations. It seems important.