You will satisfy me with joy in your presence, with everlasting happiness at your right hand” (Ps 16:11)
It is impossible to say with more precision and beauty. Enter the dance synchronically, the Presence (God himself), satiety and joy, this time
definitive.
For this reason, the psalmist invites, almost challenges, to verify it, to “savor” how soft (we could say: how delicious, always in reference to the delicacies) is the Lord (Psalm 34.9).
But here’s the thing: to him whose heart is inhabited by the gods of earth, these sublimities are going to sound like irony or, in the best of cases,
ridiculous and, of course, alienating mysticism.
And there we touch the root of the problem. the matters of life, if looked at intellectually, they are unbearable, because they are so exaggerated. The matters of life can only be understood and known by living them.
Saint Francis used to say that you only know what you live. The matters of life, one can only begin to understand once we begin to live it and I could add something else: the matters of life, when analyzed intellectually, can be reduced to a lot of words, and nothing more!
God is not a mental abstraction, he is a matter of life, he is a person, and a person is not “known” by reducing it to a set of logical ideas, however, by treating it.
The idea of God is one thing, and God himself is another. One thing is the idea (chemical formula) of the wine, and another thing the wine itself. No one gets drunk with the word “wine,” nor with its chemical formula. The word “fire” is one thing, and fire itself is another. Nobody burns with the word “fire.” Nobody is satisfied with the well-known formula of water: H2O.You have to drink it.
God is the cool water, the burning wine, but you have to drink it. Those who don’t try it cannot be “tasters” of that wine, they do not know anything about that wine, because they have not savored it. For this reason, the psalmist invites, challenges, to “taste” the Lord.
When man experiences that God is “my God”, that the Father is “my Father”, when he has entered into a personal relationship with Him, and he knows that, night and day, He is at his door, he accompanies him like the most caring mother and watches over his dream, inspires him and he feels it as strength, joy and freedom, then the words of the psalmist not only does not result in exaggeration, however; it falls short. God is to “be lived”; and that’s when he is transformed into an invulnerable fortress towards the fight for liberation.
And this is how, full of tenderness, the psalmist continues to expand: In bed I remember You, and watching I meditate on You. Such a man will never be harassed by fear.
He will advance into the night, and ghosts will never haunt him; and while he works, walks and interacts with others, security and joy will accompany him like two tutelary angels, because “You are with me.”
To signify this internal state of liberation, the psalmist utters one of the most splendid verses: “In the shadow of your wings I sing with joy. Jubilee: the word “highest” among the synonyms of joy. Singing: when spontaneous, it is always a way out; When someone overflows with joy, he needs to burst out, and singing is the burst. Wing: in the Bible, it is frequently a symbol of God’s protective power. Shadow: on a hot summer afternoon, the most desirable gift.
Now put the four words together and we will find that the psalmist achieves the “feat” of describing the indescribable in a single short verse; and we meet
with an enviable human outlook: a man preceded by security, followed by peace, guarded by freedom and breathing joy throughout his pores. Who will prevent such a man from being love and salvation for all?
Taken from the book: “Psalms for life” chapter III section “Life banquet and party” of Father Ignacio Larrañaga.
