River of delights

Over the years, probably millions of photos have been snapped at this spot in the Tumwater Canyon in Washington’s Cascade mountains. Even though I’ve taken several of my own, every time this view communicates something to me in a different, worshipful way. Just days before, three dear older friends died. This being autumn, the season of dying, the brilliance of dying leaves and the shush of the waterfall came together to remind me of the cycle of life and the plan of God in all.

A few days later, this river scene returned in my memory as I read Psalm 36:

They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights.  For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. (Psalm 36:8-9)

The river of delights.”  “The fountain of life.”  “Light.” All these gifts of knowing God are ours, revealed in God’s creation and articulated in scriptures. And the Psalms articulate them so well.

Do we prize them as we should?

In a collection of essays compiled by Judith Couchman, titled One Holy Passion (Waterbrook, 1998) there is an amazing story told by Anne Wilcox about a dissident Soviet Jew who sought to leave Russia for freedom in Israel. His wife was able to leave, but he was detained and finally imprisoned. Through long years of Russian prisons and work camps he lost all his possessions except a miniature copy of Psalms. Once, when he refused to give it to authorities, he was punished with 130 days in solitary confinement.

Twelve years after he bid goodbye to his wife, saying he’d see her soon in Jerusalem, he was allowed to leave the prison. But as he started to walk away to guards to those who’d take him to Jerusalem, the guards tried one last time to confiscate his copy of Psalms.  As Wilcox retells it, he “threw himself face down in the snow and refused to walk on to freedom without it.  Those words had kept him alive during imprisonment.  He would not go on to freedom without them” (“Words of Life, Words of Delight,” p. 67).

Are the psalms for you a “river of delights”?

Which has been meaningful to you lately?  I’ve love to hear from readers in the comments area.