Psalm 40:1-11 "Spiritual Affective Disorder: Playlists"

In North Dakota, there was a clever old preacher who continually amazed his congregation.  You see, no matter how bad the circumstances were, he could always find something to be thankful for.  

One cold December morning when the wind was whipping, bringing the wind chill way below zero, he arrived late to church because his car got stuck in a large snow drift. In addition, the power at the church had gone out sometime in the wee hours of the morning, so there was no heat in the sanctuary.  To top it all off, the organist did not show up.

Needless-to-say, the congregation, most of them still in their winter coats and blowing into their cupped hands to stay warm, nonetheless eagerly waited to hear what the old preacher could possibly come up with to be thankful for on that dismal and frigid morning. 

"Dear God," he earnestly began his prayer. "I thank you that not all days are like this one.”

After all, days like the clever old preacher experienced are enough to give you Spiritual Affective Disorder – which is what we are focusing on here in church during this post-Christmas Epiphany season.  We began this worship series last week, and it will continue until early March when the Season of Lent begins. 

Spiritual Affective Disorder is similar to the better-known and medically- documented Seasonal Affective Disorder when the diminished amount of sunlight (such as we experience here in Maine in the winter) causes a variety of symptoms like sluggishness, low energy, and loss of interest in everyday activities.  Spiritual Affective Disorder is similarly tied to a lack of light, but light of a contrasting sort and from a different source.  

We know we are toying with Spiritual Affective Disorder when our lives seem too chaotic, we are over-committed, and when nothing seems to be going our way – in short, when God seems to have left us out in the cold.  

We are toying with Spiritual Affective Disorder when our everyday activities seem more like burdens than blessings, more like overwhelming tasks or useless sidelights than the spiritual practices they might be. 

 We are toying with Spiritual Affective Disorder when we cannot help but ask the symbolically loaded question:  Did someone forget to turn on the lights in my life?  Or to be more profound: Where is the Light of God shining in me – or is it shining at all?

Surely the Psalmist, traditionally said to be the great Jewish King David himself, raised similar questions as he composed the psalm we just read.  It is a psalm fondly referred to in some circles as ”The Mud Psalm.” 

The author must have wondered where the Light of God was – and if he would ever experience its warmth and radiance again.  When the Psalm begins, we find King David (or whoever the writer was) in the pits – most likely figuratively, but still.  

It was as if he had fallen into a deep and dark well or cistern. He had hit rock bottom – or rather sludge bottom. There he was stuck in the mud and mire of who knows what? Despair?  Adversity?  Hopelessness? Helplessness?  At any rate, he wallowed in darkness, and the Light was nowhere to be seen.  

Perhaps it was as one blogger I read this week wrote using vivid imagery:

Maybe it was a “young David out in the wilderness with his troop of men
hiding from a crazed king (Saul), exploring the land. Suddenly David stumbles into a swamp, sinking into mire, stuck in the mud alone.
He cries out: Help me! Anyone?!  Lord!!? Help!
Then comes the waiting, trying not to struggle, slime rising up his legs, panic rising in his blood.
If you fight the mud, it claims you.  You must fight the fear and keep still.  You have to be patient .  All you can do is cry for help. (Patience?  Hah! When has David, or any of us for that matter, waited patiently?)

And (eventually) help comes.  Friends come running
Stop! careful!
Extracting man from mud requires thought and planning, team work, and tools lest another too is lost.
Slowly, with strength and gentleness, David is pulled up and out.  Feet connect with rock.
He has never been so grateful for solid ground.

And so he sings a song of praise and gratitude, (he sings) a song of praise and gratitude.

         I do not know in what pit you find yourself during this season of low winter light.  I do not know the sludge and mud of your life.  Perhaps your money does not last long enough each month.  Or you may be scared for yourself and your family in this era when even churches are not safe from violence.  Maybe you despair at the lack of civil discourse at all levels of government. Maybe you are despondent and disheartened by the upcoming impeachment trial.

 You could be suffering in an unhealthy relationship – or wish you had some sort of intimate companion. For all one knows, you may be going in a zillion different directions, none of which are your passion. For me, it is watching my elderly mother decline from an injury whose origins remain hidden, knowing that her quality of life turned on a dime due to someone else’s (but we will never know who) someone else’s error in judgment.

I was stuck, stuck in mud
up to my knees in it, sinking down
Help! I yelled, Hurry!
and help came, strong hands
pulled me out to safety.
Solid ground never felt so good!
What a great God we serve!
O God, you inspire new songs!

You inspire new songs!

In the Broadway musical, “Camelot”, King Arthur and Guinevere sing a duet when they both know that their relationship has hit the skids, but they are still trying to salvage it.

“What do the simple folk do?” Guinevere asks.  “To help them escape when they’re blue?”

And Arthur replies, “Once, upon the road, I came upon a lad singing in a voice three times his size.  When I asked him why, he told me he was sad and singing always made his spirits rise. And that’s what simple folk do. I surmise.”

“They sing?”

“I surmise.”

There was once a little canary that was such a happy bird. His song would fill the whole house with joy. Every morning he would start singing and would sing until it was bed time.  One day the woman of the house decided to take a shortcut cleaning his cage.  SPOILER ALERT:  This is not going to end well for the bird.  

She got the vacuum cleaner out and proceeded to vacuum up the usual mess. However, the phone rung, and she ran to answer it, leaving the vacuum running. 

All of a sudden, there was an awful sound as the little bird was sucked into the vacuum. The woman ran and opened the vacuum and rescued the little bird, but the trauma was too much.  The bird survived, but never sang again. The moral of the story?  You should never suck up bird droppings with a vacuum cleaner. Or – It is easy to lose your joy and forget how to sing.

Perhaps that is at least part of what the Psalmist is trying to tell us. As worship consultant Marcia McFee suggests:  “Music is known to have a powerful effect on our moods with its ability to literally ‘move’ us.” We all eventually end up in the dark and in the mud.  None of us will escape that! However, “the Psalmist proclaims that God can give us a new song (that has the potential to bring) us out of a ‘miry bog.’”  Consequently, perhaps we ought to pay more attention to our music "playlists" because they can be for us a transformative daily spiritual practice. 

 In other words, music plays an important role in our lives.  Everyday humming might well be a deeply enriching spiritual practice – powerful enough to lift us out of the darkness of the pit and into the Light of God.  Something as simple as singing –  singing a new song - whether it is in the shower, in the car when the windows are rolled up (or rolled down), or here in church – music can help us turn the lights on in our life.

Saint Augustine once said that the woman or man who sings “prays twice.”  More recently, Methodist hymn writer  Carolyn Winfield Gillette commented that: “Sometimes our psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs become our ‘thankful prayers’ and at other times they become our desperate prayers, prayers of lament, or prayers of trust and commitment. “  

She goes on to say that “When we come before God in worship, why do we sing rather than merely think or talk with one another? We sing because music is a gift from God. It is a language that God has given us to express our deepest longings, our greatest joys, and our most profound trust in the One who created us and loves us unconditionally. Like all gifts from God, it is one that God calls us to use with gratitude.”

And so David is rescued from the mire and mud of the pit – and sings to God in thanksgiving.  Likewise we might be also find solace in song – here in worship but in our own lives outside of this church as well.  And so, while we are here in worship, I challenge you to sing boldly and to relish to the music that Patrick and Gary are offering.  It tells our story.  It burrows into our emotional lives and brings forth all that lies deep within our hearts and souls.   

Iona Community resource worker John Bell once said in a workshop I attended that we as preachers would be arrogant indeed if we thought that our congregations remembered 10% of what we talked about in a sermon.  They will, however, he continued, remember the songs they sang and how the music they heard made them feel.  

And so I say to you, as a way to disengage yourself from the Spiritual Affective Disorder that may be haunting you on these chilly and dark winter days and nights:  Come out of the mire and into the choir.  Listen intently, and sing boldly – even the songs you do not know.  You will create your own harmony – and that is good.  Besides, at one time or another, every song was a new song.  

A worshipper once said, “Please! NO more new hymns! What’s wrong with the inspiring hymns with which we grew up? I go to church to worship God, not to be distracted with learning a new hymn. Last Sunday’s hymn was particularly unnerving. 

While the text was good, the tune was quite unsingable and the harmonies were quite discordant.” Ever heard that before in a church?

However, this complaint was registered in 1890! The hymn that elicited the outrage was “What A Friend We Have In Jesus”.  

Sing boldly.  Make music a part of your day – at church but also at home.  Doing so is an everyday activity that can also be a spiritual practice.  

Be careful what you sing though!  Nothing like “I'm Just A Bug on The Windshield of Life?” Or, “I Bought The Boots That Just Walked Out On Me.” Or how about this classic, “The Next Time You Throw That Fryin' Pan, My Face Ain't Gonna Be There?” All real songs by the way – but not particularly good ones to diminish Spiritual Affective Disorder!

And so my challenge to each one of you this week as we try to develop enlightening spiritual practices in the depth of winter is, first, to sing.  For some of you, that might be pretending you are Pavarotti or Taylor Swift.  For others, it might be remembering to hum once in a while.  But however you choose to participate in my challenge, sing songs that bring light – God’s Light - into your life. And they do not have to be religious songs either!

The second part of my challenge to you this week is to make a playlist for yourself.  Seriously:  As you come across music that moves you and lifts you up and lightens your life or music you find yourself singing this week, text me, email me, email the office, or write down the names of those songs and put them in the offering plate next week.  Your name is not necessary. If enough of you choose to participate,  we can make a list of songs of light – to benefit all of us who might be struggling with Spiritual Affective Disorder.

In closing then, I admonish you:  Sing boldly this week.  Make music a part of your day.  Send me your playlist.  But most of all, come out of the mire – and into the choir!