Come in!
Come in! — 15 December 2021
I admit I had a crush on Patrick Miller.
It might have been different had I known him as Dr. Miller, distinguished Professor of Old Testament Theology at Princeton. I did not have the honor of Princeton. But I did have the honor of Pat as friend and mischievous comrade in a decade of North Carolina summers. Not enough time.
The first time I met Pat and Mary Ann I cried.
I was corralling three-year-old Jack after a squirmy worship service in Anderson Auditorium and looked up to see a handsome older couple waiting for me. Pat pinned me with his deceptively mild gaze and said, “I’m Pat Miller. Your mother and I were summer friends growing up. She was such a lovely person and I miss her. I’m sure you do, too.” This was five years after Mama died and I’d thought I was past unexpected tears.
Embarrassed, I spent Jack’s naptime composing an explanation to Pat and Mary Ann. Late afternoon, we attempted a stealthy delivery of my fourth draft, but it’s hard to sneak up to that marvelous Frank Lloyd Wright-ish house. Embarrassed again! A bit of small talk before hightailing it to the playground to recover. They wrote back the next day to invite us to visit one afternoon. Jack was charmed by Mary Ann, her cookies, and Tigger. They had me at come in.
Daddy, Mark, and I enjoyed hosting Pat, his adored Mary Ann, and his beloved twin, Mary, on our Montreat porch. Pat, especially, loved hearing the creek. It recalled his Montreat childhood and was the one thing he missed living way up the mountain. I could usually persuade him to sip a Gin and Tonic with me while I tried to keep him all to myself, at least until supper. Of course, everyone else wanted him, too, but I have a pretty good game when I’m trying. Later, Mark would ask how my boyfriend was. I’d just smile.
I miss my twinkly-eyed friend.
Montreat is hosting a conference honoring Pat and his love, not to mention deep scholarship, of the Psalms. I’ve entertained the idea of submitting because I can’t think of Montreat or the Psalms without thinking of Pat. But I’m no scholar. This essay will have to serve as my tribute, because like the little drummer boy, I can only offer what rum-pa-pum-pum I’ve got.
* * * * *
For two weeks during two glorious summers, I got to go to overnight camp. It was everything summer camp should be, from archery and horses to skits and cabin chores. We woke to Reveille; took turns serving at meals; wore white on Sundays. I met my friend, Nikki, when we shared a shower in the bath house, which sounds creepy and unsettling now, but was entirely normal and efficient then. The one thing I didn’t like was rest hour. One afternoon I was perched, drowsy in the top-bunk heat, listening to the sibilant, forbidden whispers of my cabin-mates. Presumably I’d finished my obligatory letter home, because I was flipping through my Bible; I was looking for a verse to join the horse I’d painted onto a jewelry box I’d built. I’m not sure why; maybe it was assigned. Maybe I was a suck up. However it happened, I fell into the Psalms.
I must have been going randomly, because I’m pretty sure I didn’t have the stamina to make it consecutively to Psalm 121. But there I stopped, riveted. I read it over and over. It was like it bloomed on the page, an ancient gift revealed for my eyes alone, blossoming into view for the very first time. Like it was saying come in just to me. I underlined every word in my old RSV Bible.
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from whence does my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
(I’m sorry to have to make a little grammar detour here. But I must proclaim my visceral displeasure with ‘from whence’. Whence is a lyrical, beautiful word that means from where. This translation makes it from from where; the redundancy encumbering the poetry. Hence (from now), may whence be left to stand, majestically, alone.)
Psalm 121 made me homesick for Montreat. Those were, and are, the hills I look to, and God does, indeed, feel closer there. In Montreat, the Lord who made heaven and earth got a little sloppy, or maybe generous; the veil between the two is gauzy, and some folk call it a thin place. Daddy said it’s where heaven is a local call.
Psalm 121 spoke to my tender adolescent heart that was full of future angst—Will I be pretty one day? Will a boy ever love me? What do I want to do with my life? Why can’t I be like that girl? Am I enough? Am I safe? Am I good even if I’m not who other people want me to be? Who do I want me to be?
Psalm 121 says yes to all the important questions. You are good enough. You are loved. You are safe. You are allowed to be your own sweet self. And the Lord—the Lord who made heaven and earth!—will be right there beside you every step of the way. Will protect you from too much sun, too much shade; will cherish your little life and never not be there. What right have you not to cherish this very life you’ve been gifted? You are beloved of God. Act like it.
But then for a few decades I really didn’t like the Psalms.
I began to live into and encounter the vast complexity of life. I was plagued by the chasm between what Jesus said and what Christians did, myself included. And I certainly endured my share of smiting—of sun and moon, gossips and liars, so-called friends and arbitrary rules. When I went to the Psalms for comfort, they just seemed whiny. Fierce, fickle, fair-weather David pouring out his fretful lover’s heart to God.
Psalms be like: My God is the best! Our God is better than your god(s)—we don’t believe in yours, but ours is still better—Yea God! Wait, God, where are you? God has forsaken us! God is never around when we need him. He’s abandoned us. Let’s praise their gods. Oh no, there you are, Yahweh. I never doubted you. Grab the tambourines! Praise his holy name! Mine enemies surround me again, hide me! God, I hope you’re happy now, our enemies defeated us. We hate them! You have failed us. Oh wait—I see you now. I’m your man! Yahweh is the bomb! Yikes, enemies. Our God has abandoned us. Hey, God is back! His steadfast love endures forever! Let me get my lyre….
In other words, the Psalms are the perfect poetry for teens.
Thing is, I wasn’t allowed to act like that as a teen, or at any other age. So how could I take it seriously? And what about Jesus? Jesus spends most of his brief life including the outcasts, seeking the lost, healing the sick, elevating the lowly, angering the privileged, forgiving the enemies—turning Royal David’s city inside out.
The vast complexity of life has not changed; in ripe middle age I continue to be confounded by hypocrisy, gaslighting, anti-intellectualism, intentional shortsightedness. Especially by self-proclaimed Christians, self-styled patriots. Yet I have softened toward the Psalms. Who hasn’t indulged some fickle whining before shrugging back into ill-fitting adult responsibilities?
Now, as an adult, I try to keep my whining to myself. Bottled up until I can be alone and, preferably outside. Or on my Montreat porch. There, in the loud silence of the creek’s busy journey, my sighs too deep for words eventually join the current’s never-ending praise—here I am, send me, send me, send me. God palpable in that thin place, loving me back into awareness.
I love this last, layered verse of Psalm 121:
8 The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and for evermore.
What blessing is this pilgrim’s life: the going out, the coming in.
When leaving my house I open the door on which I lettered my favorite sending/blessing that begins Go out into the world in Peace. When passing through the gates of my college campus the tradition was to touch the ceiling of the car to get your guardian angel—you released him/her the same way driving back onto the domain. Occasionally I do this when driving through Montreat’s gate.
Sometimes it’s going out of my comfort zone, or down a new path, or out of my country, or into a new culture. The comfort in the verse is God’s never-failing presence, even when I forget to be aware of it. The welcome back is always there. Come in!
Whence cometh my joy.
On the Montreat porch, together on both sides of heaven’s veil, I can hear Mama saying, “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” I can hear Daddy saying, “It’s better than I deserve.” I can hear Pat saying, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.”
Y’all come on in.
