Psalm 8: Look Deep Into Nature

Psalm 8 is a powerful, concise reminder of divine love.

The imagery of nature is simply stated but vivid.

The psalmist contrasts people against the awe-inspiring backdrop of some of nature's most beautiful, remote, and mysterious creations: the endless sky, the constant moon, the sparkling stars.

It's interesting that the backdrop is the night with its wondrous, puzzling, sometimes overwhelming mysteries. But usually night isn't totally dark because of light from the moon and stars, as well as from electricity.

I find a parallel with our attempts at understanding this life, this world. The darkness of night is that dark night of the soul where we proceed by questions and doubts, fears and anxieties, and suppositions and intimations, step by step, to that point where, if we're lucky or fortunate or blessed, we open our hearts and minds to nature's whisperings.

Albert Einstein said that understanding is achieved by looking deep, deep into nature. And Mr. Einstein indeed looked deeply into nature. He famously hitched a ride on a beam of light, patiently and faithfully travelling with that beam until he understood relativity.

Psalm 8 then shifts from the vast harmony of nature to the enigma of our place in these ordained creations.

Although we're "a little lower than angels," we've been crowned with "glory and honor."

We've been put in charge of God's creations. That's the ultimate compliment, the ultimate expression of divine love.

We don't hand our precious creations willingly over to those who would abuse, disrespect, and destroy them.

And yet this failure to take proper charge of these amazing gifts is exactly a major theme and a signficant source of our problems throughout human history. There appear to be many interpretations of how we are supposed to lead our lives and interact with our physical environment.

It seems true throughout history that confusion over this charge stems from a lost affinity with nature as daily decisions are entangled by manmade realities. By neglecting to ride our light beams, we shift our gaze from the panorama and we disconnect from the universe's elegant whispered intimations of immortality.

As William Wordsworth [April 7, 1770 - April 23, 1850] acknowledges in the second stanza of "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," the disconnect is epitomized by decreased awe in the face of nature, by the passing of "glory from the earth":

The Rainbow comes and goes,

And lovely is the Rose,

The Moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare;

Waters on a starry night

Are beautiful and fair;

The sunshine is a glorious birth;

But yet I know, where'er I go,

That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

The psalmist anticipates our personal loss of paradise, this "past . . . glory," by giving the answer to our questions in the last line: "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!"

The answer is whatever exalts the Lord’s name, whatever is a blessing and not a curse. I know that I'm on my light beam in touch with the universe if "My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky" [William Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold," March 26, 1802].

Psalm 8 is powerful in all of its versions, and I appreciate what each version offers. Yet I am partial to the King James Version, so that is the version I'm providing. Please read this psalm, here or elsewhere, in this version or the one that you prefer, and realize the wondrous statement of our special, even hallowed, place in the universe.

Psalm 8:

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! Who has set Thy Glory above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou ordained strength because of Thine enemies, that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.

When I consider Thy heavens, the works of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained;

What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?

For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honor.

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet.

All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;

The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth!

Copyright April 12, 2010 by Stessily