King David and Sappho of Lesbos: A Happy Comparison with Psalm 31

This episode contains a reading of Psalm 31, a psalm that brings to mind the crucifixion of Jesus.  I will share a reading from the poetry of Sappho, a Greek poetess of the year 600 B.C.E. I will compare her work to David's and share some history of this wonderful poet. Later in the episode, we will be blessed by the Mission Sisters of the Holy Spirit.  A few years ago I conducted several interviews with these amazing ladies and share with you a special moment from my last meeting with them before COVID.  They are religious sisters of the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw, Michigan. Thank you for tuning in to the show. Please consider sharing the show with someone you love and especially with those you are learning to love. : )

Books mentioned in this episode:
Sappho translated by Mary Barnard

For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Loving the Imperfect. I'm Breanne Terzinski, your host. Today I'll be reading Psalm 31.

It's a pretty long psalm. It's 25 verses. I want you to listen very carefully to this psalm.  I was racking my brain, with this episode. I didn't know what to say because there were many things to say.  And I wanted to make it as simple as possible.

So I want to focus on two verses. Verse five, into your hands I commit my spirit, which is what Jesus says before he dies in verse 16, let your face shine on your servant.  So even though there are many verses in this psalm that we could look at,  that point back to other parts of the Bible, those are the two I want to focus on. As we go through this.

This is a psalm,  that speaks to betrayal to crucifixion.

Easter is coming up so I want you to listen very carefully to these words.
Psalm 31:
In You, Lord, I have taken refuge. Let me never be put to shame. Deliver me in Your righteousness. Turn Your ear to me. Come quickly to my rescue.  Be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me.  since you are my rock and my fortress.
For the sake of your name, lead and guide me.  Keep me free from the trap that is set for me. For you are my refuge.  Into your hands, I commit my spirit.  Deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.   
I hate those who cling to worthless idols. As for me, I trust in the Lord.  I will be glad and rejoice in your love,  for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul.  You have not given me into the hands of the enemy,  but have set my feet in a spacious place.
Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress.  My eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish, and my years by groaning. My strength fails because of my affliction,  and my bones grow weak because of all my enemies.  I am the utter contempt of my neighbors and an object of dread to my closest friends.
Those who see me on the street flee from me. I am forgotten as though I were dead. I have become like broken pottery.
For I hear many whispering, terror on every side. They conspire against me and plot to take my life.  But I trust in you, Lord. I say you are my God. My times are in your hands. Deliver me from the hands of my enemies, from those who pursue me. Let your face shine on your servant. Save me from your unfailing love.

Let me not be put to shame, Lord, for I have cried out to you. But let the wicked be put to shame, and be silent in the realm of the dead. Let their lying lips be silenced. For with pride and contempt, they speak arrogantly against the righteous. How abundant are the good things that you have stored up for those who fear you, that you bestow in the sight of all,  on those who take refuge in you.

In the shelter of your presence, you hide them from all human intrigues.  You keep them safe in your dwelling from accusing tongues.  Praise be to the Lord, for he showed me the wonders of his love.  When I was in a city under siege, in my alarm I said, I am cut off from your sight.  Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help. 

Love the Lord, and all his faithful people. The Lord preserves those who are true to him, but the proud he pays back in full. Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.

Jesus is pointing back to this psalm on the cross when he says, into your hands, I commit my spirit. He says that right before he takes his last breath and he dies. And then St. Stephen in Acts, alludes to this same verse.

When he says, Jesus, take my spirit, he says something like that, right before he is stoned to death. But you see, the difference is, is that these two men, Jesus and St. Stephen,  died because they said this verse, or they said something like it, and they died.  But David is not dying. He does not want to die. He is not a friend of death. He is always, in all the Psalms he writes,  he always wants God to save him from death.  And so that's the difference.  So Jesus points back to this psalm on the cross because maybe he wanted us to hear the message long after he was gone. That message of the agony of injustice. The loneliness of it. But in the end, hope in the Lord. That's what he keeps reminding us. So, if you've ever been crucified or betrayed by people that you trusted to take care of you, and then they betrayed you in some way, this psalm is for you, because everything that David speaks of is what happens when you're betrayed, especially by a group of people. You don't feel safe anywhere. You feel, and you are almost left with this scar of trauma from that experience that you might not ever trust anyone again. So before Jesus gave up his breath, he said into your hands, I commit or commend my spirit, but David said this first in Psalm 31 and He was not speaking of death But of life, because he spends the first part of the Psalm asking for God to hear his prayer He says incline your ear to me  Make haste to rescue me.

He is asking God to lead and guide him. So he says, into your hands, I commit my spirit. Lead and guide me while I live and breathe. So that's the difference.

These words that we read through the Psalms, the Psalms that David himself wrote, are his life's blood. W. Somerset Maugham is one of my favorite authors.  He said, something like, the author works hard his whole life and puts his life's blood into his work.
And his book, his words will sit around and sit around until the reader decides they have time to read those words. And so writers are usually very patient people. They have a patient spirit because they have to wait until everyone has time.  before they can be heard.  And they're used to that waiting. They're used to submitting their work to literary magazines and getting a million rejections before they get an acceptance.

David is putting his life's blood into these psalms. And how lucky are we that we get to read these words,  a person who lived an estimated more than 3, 000 years ago.  We get to read his words and that he is so vulnerable in his Psalms. That is what's so precious about these Psalms. Even if you're not religious. Because from a literary standpoint,

amazingly, we have these.  They're not cold. They give you a glimpse of the human condition more than 3, 000 years ago,  proof that humans have not changed ever. It has always been the same. And I know I've said that in episodes before. The human condition has not changed.  I just think, from somebody who studied history in college, that was my degree, and so from a historical standpoint,  that's what, that is one aspect of the Bible that I think is very interesting, is that we have these, these records of,  of text from human beings.

what they, what they dealt with. And this isn't just what David dealt with on a surface level. We're getting a glimpse into his spirit and his headspace. I just think that's so fascinating.  We have nothing else like it I mean, the only things that existed, if you look at all the Bible, all the writings of the Bible, they're nothing like the Psalms. The closest thing is maybe the songs of Solomon or Ecclesiastes, but that's about it. And those don't even Really get into the depth of one person.

One person really gets into their agony, and their love, and their joy, and their celebration.  Even the Psalms that weren't written by David.  They do the same. They give us a glimpse of the human condition. I would argue that nothing else in the Bible that early in those years,  a thousand B.C.E.,  does it quite like the Psalms.  The only other thing we have besides the Bible are the steles   A stelae is a slab. It's, it's a slab people used to make thousands of years ago that either pinpointed where somebody was buried, so it was like a grave marker, or it showed where an important historical event occurred. they've been found all over the world, where ancient civilizations existed There was a stelae found  in Tel Dan

, and the slab was made apparently by a king,  of what is now Syria. And on the inscription,  this king boasts of defeating two kings, Amri, who is mentioned in the Bible that, and an unnamed king of Judea of the house of David.  and,  they just name the facts and they're just very surface.



The only other thing that comes close. The Psalms, I would say, is maybe the work of Sappho of Lesbos, the poems of Sappho.

She lived in 600 BCE. She was Greek, a Greek poetess.  Not much is known about her. There are a lot of theories about her life, but really scholars only have her poems to go on for information about her. Most of her poems were,  written on

Papyrus that has been destroyed or,  torn into strips and used to,  mummify,  animals and humans have just been found in various places.  So these scholars like Mary Bernard, one of the best, translators of Sappho's work., it was difficult for her because she was trying to piece together fragments of poems,

 Sappho was a big,  follower of  Aphrodite from what I gather. And, um, they think that she was part of an aristocratic family in Greece.  She mentions things like wearing purple gowns in her poetry. Purple was a color reserved for royalty or people who were very, very wealthy because the dye for purple was very expensive and rare.

And so that's just what I noticed just from reading some of her poems, and she seems to have beef with a couple of people that she keeps talking about in her poems. So it's pretty interesting if you read them all,  right in a row, you do get a glimpse of who she was as a person, but it's not as three dimensional as reading the Psalms because we have David's whole life story, or at least what was written about David, plus we have the Psalms to supplement that information.

And we don't have the same with other writers of, antiquity. It's a little book, but it was translated by Mary Bernard, who is one of the best, translators of Sappho's work.  And in the back tells a little bit about Sappho's life, what they know, what they don't know. These are just fragments.

  I mean, some of these pages only have four lines of text on them.  You know, that's all they could find of one particular poem. And Mary Bernard was very careful, she said,  not to fill in words where she didn't think that Sappho herself would have written them. So, the translation is pretty sensitive to keeping the integrity of the original work.

  And so that, that's a different kind of thing. Sappho of Lesbos, from her comes the term lesbian because she wrote primarily to women, for women, about women. So, I'm going to read this poem. The first line of the poem is considered the title. 

Prayer to my lady of Paphos
Dapple-throned Aphrodite,
eternal daughter of God, 
snare knitter,  don't, I beg you,

cow my heart with grief,
come, as once when you heard my far-
off cry and, listening, stepped,

from your father's house to your
gold car, to yoke the pair whose
beautiful thicked, feathered wings,

oaring down mid-air from heaven, 
carried you to light swiftly
on the dark earth; then, blissful one,

smiling your immortal smile,
you asked, What ailed me now that
made me call on you again?  What

was it that my distracted
heart most wanted? "Whom has
Persuasion bring round now

"to your love? Who, Sappho, is
unfair to you?  For, let her
run, she will soon run after;

"If she won't accept gifts, she
will one day give them; and if
she won't love you--she soon will

"love, although unwillingly...."
If ever--come now! Relieve
this intolerable pain!

What my heart most hopes will
happen, make happen; you your-
self joined forces on my side!

So basically in that prayer, she's asking Aphrodite to come.  and help her, uh, deal with someone who has hurt her. And so I read this one because it compares a little bit to some of David's laments that we read in the Psalms, except he's speaking to God and Sappho is speaking to one of her gods, Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love.

Women in Sappho's day were revered for learning the art of writing poetry and composing music to go with that poetry. , for example, in the 18th and 19th centuries,  women entertained, by playing the piano or singing to groups. They were taught how to do these things,  as a source of entertainment,  especially in the aristocratic families.

So in Sappho's day in 600 BCE, in ancient Greece, women were taught how to  They think, anyways, that women were taught how to write poetry,, and that was a form of entertainment, and women were the ones that were able to do these things.

We do have a lot of work from men in scripture, it's all men, and

David with his Psalms is allowing us a glimpse into that part of men that should be allowed to be sensitive poetic and emotional and open. He's so vulnerable in these psalms and that is one hidden teaching quality of the psalms. 

  The Psalms teach us that it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to share our pain. , or rejoice. And give us control. in our will to love these creations of writing and different art forms throughout the centuries. There are a couple of different,  verses in this psalm that are important when David says, into your hands, I commend my spirit or commit my spirit.  He is giving over his free will.

Now, this is something. about free will that is not taught very often is the fact that no one can mess with our free will.

It is what is demonstrated in the story of Adam and Eve,  which is what I would call a creation myth.  Every civilization has had a creation story, and this is just the Christian version of the creation story. , that whole story just demonstrates that we have free will, and we need to use it wisely.

So, David, in this psalm, he's It's telling God, into your hands I commit my spirit. Into your hands, I give you my free will.  And so now I do whatever you tell me to do.

So he says in verse 16, he writes, let your face shine on your servant. Save me in your unfailing love.

So, that line specifically brings to mind a blessing from the times of Moses.  A blessing for the Israelites that was given to Moses by God.  In Numbers 620 it says:

"The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace."
 
Shalom in Hebrew means peace. This word encompasses the idea of happiness and good health prosperity, friendship, and general well-being.

To those who used this in terms of a greeting, it meant that you were praying for all of these good things for the people to whom you said this word.

A few years ago, I interviewed a religious community of sisters  I thought I would write a book about them. They were the mission sisters of the Holy Spirit. And I had to drive there, I think it was, it was like a convent, but it was more like a home, and the home was attached to a nursing home.

 For the religious community that was part of the diocese there. Out of the 20 sisters, I think they started with 20 sisters, and their little congregation,  shrunk down because they kept getting older.  When I interviewed them, they only had three sisters left. So I visited them three or four times,   and there were some memorable moments and good advice that they gave me.

We'd always start with a prayer, and then I'd ask them a few questions. And they always invited me to a humble lunch with like a noodle salad, some juice, fruit, sometimes soup was offered. They all helped in the kitchen like sisters.   It was really cute to watch them all set the table together clear the table and wash the dishes.

One of the memorable moments was when upon leaving, they asked me if they could bless me before I left.

  I'm going to go ahead and play the audio from that visit it's very special, I think. 

I know you're probably anxious to leave, but could we have a, could we share with you the diocesan blessing? Yeah. It was a blessing that Bishop can leave with us. I mean, you know, he taught it to us and we prayed it a lot at gatherings when we have the opportunity to extend that blessing on someone, we do. I sat there and they all stood around me and held their hands over my head. And it was this blessing of Moses that they sang to me.  May the Lord bless and keep you.  May she let his face shine upon you. And be gracious to you. And give you his peace. May  God bless and keep you. May she let her face shine upon you and be grace just to you and give you her peace.

Amen. Amen.

In the end, Sister Elaine was so funny. She sort of bopped me on the head very gently. 

So it surprised me when the mission sisters in that blessing used the pronoun she to refer to God. That was so nice to hear, that they were open to the possibility that God can be anything.

And it opened up the recognition of the divine feminine. And I will say that when the Mission Sisters held their hands above my head and blessed me with that song, I truly felt blessed. This energy of love surrounded me for the rest of the day. I felt like I was in this little beautiful cocoon of love.  And I needed it so badly at that time in my life. So David in this psalm is asking for that blessing and maybe there truly is some magic in that when somebody pours their love on you in this way.

 David writes, let your face shine on your servant.  So this means give me your presence.  And when, when you're talking to someone, their face is shining on you.

They are looking at you. They're facing you. They're giving you their attention.  And this is what David is asking of God. And I'm suggesting that we ask this of each other,  and we give this to each other. The Hebrew word for face is paneh, which means presence.  Let your face shine on your servant means to look at me in the face. Give me your attention. Give me your presence.  So it goes back to the theophany that both Moses and Jesus and other prophets had experienced, throughout the Bible. Theophany is seeing the face of God and, or experiencing the face of God.  And, and when this happened, Moses's face shined radiantly.  And that was that blessing that God's face had shined on him because of whatever conversation was happening.

John O'Donohue, we mentioned him in the last episode.   Writes in Walking in Wonder,  He asks the question, When was the last time you had a great conversation? And we know that it's a great conversation because we're still thinking about it a week later.

And it's rare, it's not very common that we have these fantastic conversations with people that are kindred spirits, that allow us that presence.

And so that's how I felt when the Mission Sisters blessed me with that, blessing.  I felt it for the rest of the day my face shined radiantly because we had just gotten done with a wonderful conversation, a lot of listening, and camaraderie. I hope that by my sharing that blessing with you, you feel even just a small portion of what I did that day. Just being with them, the camaraderie of our fellowship,  and the listening and the speaking and the sharing.  And David is asking the same thing of God. He's asking, you know, give me your presence, give me your attention.

I want to be heard.  I need to make sure that you're with me and you will help me and save me.  That's what we're asking of our loved ones or our friends. When we're going through something, we need to be heard. We need that presence.  Or we could die, right?  Emotionally, and spiritually, we die when people don't pay attention to us.

 Or we stop being present even to ourselves at that point. That's a death.  And so that's what David is teaching us in this psalm we ask for presence and we give presence. That's the greatest gift we can give people.

 Thank you so much for joining me today. And for all of you listening around the world, it seems, which is crazy to me. , just thank you so much.  Every Thursday, I upload new episodes. Around 5 a.m. Eastern Time,

and feel free to share the episodes with your friends or on social media if you feel called to do that.  You can also follow me on the Loving the Imperfect podcast on Instagram. And you can contact me that way if you have any questions about the show.

 Next week we will be covering Psalm 38 and we will be taking a very close look at Pontius Pilate because Easter is coming up thank you for joining me. Bye bye