Psalm 25 - Holding on to the Broccoli of Hesed

Yes, that is a plush broccoli that Scout is laying on top of and holding onto with one of her paws. I don’t remember why, but years ago we bought this broccoli and also a plush carrot at Ikea. Maybe it was to try to convince our kids (who were very young at the time) to be better about eating their veggies. Or maybe for a Veggie Tales thing at church. I don’t remember. But they’ve been around our house for a long time. Like the plush llama that you may have seen, Scout has also claimed this broccoli as her own. It is one of the plushies that she grabs when we get home - she holds it up until we come see her and give her lots of love. It is pretty darn adorable.

Anyway - I got home this afternoon and Scout grabbed the Broccoli and hopped up on the couch with it as I sat down with her. Eventually she dropped it but it landed right on the edge of the couch. As Scout eventually was satisfied by the amount of scratches she got, she went to lay down and almost knocked the broccoli off the couch. But she was fast enough with her paw and with laying down that the broccoli was held up as you see here in the photo. And she was there for quite a while until my wife got home and the cycle repeated.

Holding on...there are times that it feels like we just have to hold onto some things with everything we can, things that if we let them slip even a little that they will fall and be even harder to get back.

Hesed, which shows up here in this Psalm (like many of the recent ones), is one of those things. In verse 10, we find it once again...

Fischer’s version:

For you are goodness and uprightness
You point out the way of wholeness
Guide the still soul on paths of justice
You teach her your pattern
All your paths are kindness (hesed) and truth
For those who love you and hold you in mind¹

Hesed is this thing that might be best translated as mercylovingkindness and it is one of those things that feels like if we start letting it slip and falling into the opposites of it - oppression, hate, cruelty, dehumanization, malice, and so forth - that it will be very very hard to get back. I notice in the Jesus stories how his moments of anger (and there are some) are not rooted at others per se but at their actions and the ways that their actions had injured or abused others. He never restored to “othering” or rejecting others but always inviting them in the spirit of hesed.

I’m currently reading another of Valerie Kaur’s books after reading her book See No Stranger: A Manifesto of Revolutionay Love late last year. Ms Kaur is a Sikh activitst and writer with deep wisdom and powerful insights. The book that I am reading now is called Sage Warrior: Wake to Oneness, Practice Pleasure, Choose Courage, Become Victory. Here’s one piece of what she has shared early on. Even though she is not directly speaking of hesed, it sure sounds a lot like it. She writes:

The sage is someone who loves deeply. You cultivate wonder for others and the earth and wake to Oneness. You befriend the body—parts of the world, and parts of yourself. You practice pleasure through music, meditation, movement, and more as channels for awakening. You build sovereign space where you can find refuge and rest in wisdom within you. The warrior is someone who fights for humanity, including your own. You access your agency and activate power. In the face of injustice, you harness rage and refuse to surrender your humanity. You join others to grieve together and alchemize pain into energy and action. You choose courage in the face of crisis. In doing so, you become victory. You embrace rebirth. The warrior fights; the sage loves. It’s a path of Revolutionary Love. I believe Revolutionary Love is the call of our times.²

To go back to the Psalm, right before hesed shows back up is this line... You point out the way of wholeness // Guide the still soul on paths of justice... Do you hear that same spirit in Kaur’s words? Kaur shares of the interior work that a sage warrior has to do (befriend the body, find awakening, refuge, and rest) but those things lead to exterior actions (fights for humanity, stand firm in the face of injustice, grieve with others and move that grief into energy and action). And in both, choosing courage, embrace rebirth, and love. Just like hesed shows up just after that line in the Psalm, what Kaur shares here sounds a lot like the tough and necessary work of hesed.

And goodness do we need to hold onto that because so many of the messages and examples around us say otherwise.

So, I’m going to let Scout be my example today of Hesed. I’m going to hold to the mercylovingkindness that God has shown me and shown all of us and I’m going to try to hold onto it in how I live it out each day. And in my actions and in my words, I’m going to try to encourage others to live with this same mercylovingkindness. I’m going to try.

Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed

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1. Fischer, Norman. Opening to You, p 27

2. Kaur, Valarie. Sage Warrior: Wake to Oneness, Practice Pleasure, Choose Courage, Become Victory (The Revolutionary Love Project) (p. ). (Function). Kindle Edition.