Mountains may evoke strength – ‘as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people’ (Psalm 125:2); or they may be a danger as the home of alien shrines; either way, our help comes from the Lord, more than from the good things of earth, and certainly more than from the dodgy ‘fixes’ this world offers. No wonder this psalm has been a favourite.
Psalm 121
I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life. The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.
This psalm is the second ‘Psalm of the Ascents’. While later on this may have meant pilgrimage, going up to Jerusalem, originally it is likely to have been sung on the fifteen steps of the temple – see the wonderful book, The Songs of Ascents, by the (Scottish) Precentor of Brussels Cathedral, David Mitchell. In my own book I have written fifteen poems of 15 lines each for these psalms.
Song of the Fifteen Steps, Psalm 121 Poem
Pilgrimage, an upland route
footsteps on the Cairngorms,
guided deeper by Nan Shepherd,
rapt, seeing the world in her body,
feeling the coil of an eagle’s rise.
Ascent indeed, but someone higher
gives us all our pilot’s wings,
guards our going and our coming.
Pilgrimage, not mountaineering,
love the mountain, not the tops.
Hold the vision, ride the thermal
current, gaze on Angel Peak;
salute the exploits, but remember
hills and valleys frame the journey,
while the end is out of sight.
Nan Shepherd was a naturalist and writer on the Cairngorms, very much her own woman, and this poem reflects her respect of nature, her view than mountains were to be enjoyed, not conquered. In the poem I use them as a metaphor for the ups and downs of life. During this second week of Lent, we might think of Jesus going up to Jerusalem for the last time, holding the vision he received from his heavenly Father, and reflect upon our own journey.
These poems are taken from my book Temple and Tartan: Psalms, Poetry and Scotland. Sanctuary First are using this for the Book Club on the Thursdays In March – if you would like to join in on-line, the link is https://www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk/bookclub (or Google Sanctuary First Book Club).
Jock Stein