It’s 6th January 2021 and I’m starting an epiphany retreat. My plan to go elsewhere to engage with a guided retreat in person has been scuppered, thanks to Lockdown 3, so I am going solo, in my prayer-room, using a ‘retreat-in-a-bag’, bought some days ago to replace the real thing….
…or so I have been thinking until I realised yesterday that my attitude needed alteration. I began today, instead, with curiosity.
My curiosity stems from the fact that the book in the ‘retreat-in-a-bag’ turned out to be a set of reflections on that psalm – the one that people often know even when they’ve never read a psalm for themselves – Psalm 23. My heart sank the moment I realised this, and stayed down there somewhere, until the sinking feeling turned to humbling and embarrassment for thinking that I know it well enough to take it casually. How sad.
Scripture is never known – there is always more to learn from it, and also ‘reminder learnings’, which open eyes that bit wider when a well-known text is re-encountered. So, with a better attitude today I started my retreat, humbled, expectant, and prepared to learn.
Come with me, friend, if you would like to, in the coming days, and let’s conspire to see what God may be saying to us in these lovely words:
Psalm 23 (NRSV) A Psalm of David
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;[a]
3 he restores my soul.[b]
He leads me in right paths[c]
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley,[d]
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely[e] goodness and mercy[f] shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.[g]
Footnotes
- Psalm 23:2 Heb waters of rest
- Psalm 23:3 Or life
- Psalm 23:3 Or paths of righteousness
- Psalm 23:4 Or the valley of the shadow of death
- Psalm 23:6 Or Only
- Psalm 23:6 Or kindness
- Psalm 23:6 Heb for length of days
Lisa Battye blogs 