Lughnasa Lughnasa Moon
from the Episcopal service for Compline:
Psalm 91
3 He shall deliver you from the snare of the hunter *
and from the deadly pestilence.
4 He shall cover you with his pinions,
and you shall find refuge under his wings; *
his faithfulness shall be a shield and buckler.
5 You shall not be afraid of any terror by night, *
nor of the arrow that flies by day;
6 Of the plague that stalks in the darkness, *
nor of the sickness that lays waste at mid-day.
There was a time, during the mid-1980’s, when I shared an office with an Episcopal priest. During those years, we often said the daily prayers out of the Book of Common Prayer. It was soothing. Its repetition brought a sort of order to the day, or, in the case of Compline, to the coming night.
(Hieronymus_Wierix_-_Acedia)
Religions take key moments of the past and preserve them, some might say in amber, others would say in a living tradition. The emphasis in the religious life, no matter how it might claim otherwise, is to repeat the message over and over again. Taoist and Buddhist, Jew and Muslim, Hindu and Parsi all return to certain truths learned by the great men or revealed by the great gods, all in times that have long ago faded out.
The Compline service for instance promises surcease from the sorrows of life: night terrors, the sickness that lays waste at mid-day (acedia*), the arrow that flies in the day, the snares of the hunter and the deadly pestilence, by quoting the 91st Psalm. And by using it night after night.
The surcease depends on faith, of course, faith in the God who covers you with pinions (the feathers on the outer edge of the wing) and the wings, whose faithfulness to you is a shield and buckler.
There is a comfort here for me as I read this Psalm. It is a message about the universe coded for me, that is, it is a religious message within the Western tradition and even more, in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the tradition that shaped our civilization and much of our values.
This faith is no longer my faith. There is, however, in its quick outline of anxiety and its profoundest sources, a knowledge of the existential dilemma we all face. In this I see my daily struggle acknowledged by the Psalmist, a Jew of ancient times. His answers may not be my answers, but his sensitivity to the human condition, my condition, makes him my brother. His search for a solution to acedia, to the night terrors, to the snares of the hunter makes my quest for answers to these very questions one with his.
I’m glad he has an answer. It is not the answer that is the key to the comfort in these words, but in their recognition of the question, or rather, questions, that confront us all. That’s what I find so useful about religion, its willingness to define, to name the psychic and spiritual ills that plague us all. Even the answers, though I may not share them, can point to paths I might take. (more on this one later.)
*Acedia (also accidie or accedie, from Latin acedĭa, and this from Greek ἀκηδία, negligence) describes a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one’s position or condition in the world. It can lead to a state of being unable to perform one’s duties in life. Its spiritual overtones make it related to but arguably distinct from depression.[1]
