Ma Taught Psalm One

My mother, Annie Wegner, was a remarkable lady. During the school year, Monday through Friday, Ma led a worship service with my brother and me. Our older sister and father were gone for the day, and the three of us read and memorized Scriptures and prayed before leaving for elementary school. Annie was an effective teacher. When the Sunday School superintendent issued a challenge for everyone to memorize the books of the Bible in order, I’m sure he thought it would take weeks to accomplish. The very next Sunday Ma happily marched us up to the superintendent to tell him we had mastered the assignment!

The three making up the quorum for church each weekday committed Psalm One to memory in the older King James Version. The Psalm still advises, cautions, encourages, and shares wisdom 60 years later. The world-class truths are wonderfully alive during restless nights and in waking hours. I have repeated the Psalm’s words to men and women before they exit this world and entered another. One man who made little attempt to honor God in his lifetime, listened intently while I quoted the verses at each visit over a period of months,
“Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.”
A once scoffing, “I-have-no-time-for-that” hard-nosed agnostic softened with each visit. As I finished, my friend who was inching toward eternity often nodded in affirmation and said, “That’s good!” Someone probably had taught him the same Psalm in a confirmation class, or maybe his mother was like mine? The Psalmist’s wisdom was still echoing in his spirit. Alas, he failed to heed its counsel.

One thing I’ve noticed, one must discipline himself to appreciate and benefit from silence. “Meditating day and night” is a learned exercise as surely as hitting a 90 mile an hour fastball or reading a book. The nuances of Psalm One must marinate in ones spirit. Truth is not injected with a spiritual hypodermic needle. The counsel of Scripture that remains and affects our quality of life seeps in! Godly counsel can appear silly, until it gets past the conventional wisdom gathered from culture like the accumulated grime from an Arizona dust storm. The noisy marketplaces where we spend much of our lives are dominated by messages cleverly designed to overtake sound judgment. The pitch is, “Buy! Experience! Own! Lead!” The counsel of God is, “Give, learn, share, serve!”

One of Job’s laments is, “I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.” (3:26) I wonder, was Job politely asking his visitors to leave? The obverse is the fear of many social networkers today. Having a Facebook page with hundreds of “friends”, composing and reading endless e-mails daily, and being accessible to others twenty-four-seven is conventional, unchallenged standard operating procedure. But, I suggest that we are compelled by the Psalmist to set boundaries where the noises of the world and voices of family and friends cannot interrupt the Spirit who is intent on bringing Holy counsel to our lives. Stillness of spirit must permeate many hours, not the 30 minute “Quiet Time,” isolated from daily reality.

A walk down an ocean side boardwalk is a sensory attack with one vendor attempting to out-shout his neighbor. Do you wonder why restaurants have moved away from ambient music to full-speaker sound injections? Do we really need the tinny tweeters and thumping woofers urging us up and down aisles as we gather butter, briskets and bananas? Could multitasking runners avoid mixing sweat and heart beats with whatever is simultaneously pumped into the mind through ear buds? Is anyone else concerned about the deafness, physical and spiritual, of a generation which has mastered sound and ignored silence Rather than attempting to drown the noises of the world with more of our own, we might explore the prophet’s promise, “The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest.” (Isaiah 32:17-18)

Ma, thanks for introducing me to Psalm One, and much more. My life is so much richer because of our simple morning church services on the living room sofa. My leaves are still green! My soul prospers. The cumulative effect of those 15 or 20 minute services are still informing me, frequently calling out to me. It happened again this morning.