As our summer in the Psalms is about to end, I find myself thinking about Dangerous Songs, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan’s book that has been accompanying us through this season. Richard’s book, and the Psalms, are so rich; Pastor Jena and I couldn’t possibly cover all we’d like to. But I did have a couple of gems I wanted to offer you before we move on.
The first comes from American psychiatrist Dr. Bruce Perry. Richard quotes Perry as saying that we often find ourselves asking, “What is wrong with me?” when a much more helpful question might be, “What has happened to me?” (RBC, 120)
What a great insight. Something happens, whether or not we caused it, and we’re so quick to think, “What is wrong with me?” “Why can’t I get anything right?” “What a dodo.”
Maybe you don’t go there. I think most of us do–even if we don’t call ourselves a huge, flightless bird! (Which is extinct, by the way; make of that what you will.) I go there, more than I want to admit; negative self-talk comes so naturally. Which means we were taught it, whether directly or through the influence of culture. Probably both.
We can probably each hear the voice of a parent or other person of greater age or authority saying sternly, “What did you do now?”
But it’s not always the right question. Even back in that time we’re remembering, it wasn’t always something we did. Going straight to that question “What is wrong with me?” assumes this thing is on us, at some level. Even if there’s another wrongdoer in the picture, we still look for some fault in ourselves. “How could I not have seen this coming?”
“What has happened to me?” is a whole different kind of question. It opens us up to more important answers. It invites not just curiosity, but also self-compassion. It recognizes that we (and others involved) are shaped by what we have experienced—by grief and joy, by wounds and love, by things we chose and things we would have done anything to avoid. And a whole lot of things we cannot control.
Hear those words again: When something happens, don’t ask What is wrong with me? Ask What has happened to me? One of the people in my Ps(m)alm group called that insight “worth the price of the book.” I agree.
And that feels very much at home in the Psalms. The psalmists are remarkably willing to tell the truth about what has happened to them. They don’t lie and pretend that faithful people are always fine. They bring their anger, fear, grief, confusion, rage, and hope before God, and somehow all of it becomes song. And prayer.
Another thing I’ll carry with me comes from Richard’s chapter on Awe. It is a very different idea, although it, too, seems to me to run deeply through the Psalms: Nothing is in our control.
Richard doesn’t simply tell us to accept that intellectually. He asks us to practice it. Literally. He suggests that we shrug. Pull out your phone and record yourself doing it, he says. Shrug, and then watch your own face and notice the expression of resignation.
He writes, “The feeling of I don’t know and I don’t have to know can cause the body to relax a little.” (RBC, 142) He goes on:
For too long, you’ve taken credit and blame for every little thing in your life. So much so that you’ve started to think you created your life. You’ve been hard on yourself over things you were never the cause of; you’ve also attributed some good things in your life to your own ingenuity when really, they were gifts.
I love that. It actually ties into the first quote–which came from the Desolation part of Richard’s book. This one ties to Awe, which, when we experience it, is a great reminder that there are forces beyond us, beauty and glory and compassion greater than we can comprehend. And we are held in the center of all that. I don’t know and I don’t have to know. Because there is One who does know, and still regards me, you–all creation–with absolute love, no matter what. Wow.
When we get in touch with that—and I hope you’ve noticed the Psalms have been saying this to us all summer—we receive permission to stop trying to hold the whole world together. To shrug. To breathe. To admit that we don’t know—and that we don’t have to know.
Two things to carry with us from Richard’s book, then:
Ask not, What’s wrong with me? but “What has happened to me?”
And remember, “I don’t know and I don’t have to know.”
Before I sign off, let’s both take one more Richard-inspired shrug. Right now. Do it, with or without your phone camera on.
See?
