Deep Calls to Deep

     I’m preaching on the Psalms today.  Psalm 42 to be more specific.  This psalm is often recognized by its opening words: “As the deer longs for streams of water…” It’s a beautiful song about our place in the greater world.  It uses so many images of life greater than ourselves throughout.  The words “deep calls to deep” has held my heart all this past week as I've looked toward preaching.

     Deep calls to deep speaks to the core of who I am and how I am in world.  It speaks to the place in me that matters most, my centerpiece.  And here in these words the psalmist was perhaps referring to the place where each human is awake and in touch with and is deeply connected to the power of the Creator.  Verse 7 begins:  Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls…”  Perhaps referring to the beginning place of the River Jordan, a waterfall that produces energy that surges and roars through the air beginning its journey to home.

     With all the (literal) noise that fills our days, it’s the exception more than the rule that we have the chance to listen for that calling that the psalmist is referring to.  This remarkable life-giving communication that acknowledges power greater than our own, life greater than the ordinariness of our days.  Deep calls to deep summons us to the heart of who we are called to be.

     There is strength here.  There is width and breadth here.  There is place and calling of purpose here.

     For me for this morning, I am stretching to connect my soul to One who created the waterfalls and the river that runs on downstream from it, the great leviathan that lives below and even ventures above, to the One who calls us ~ each one by name.  It will be my breath prayer today (“deep”  “calls to deep”) and a song for my heart.

     Even when I make mistakes and wish, wish, wish I could take them back…deep calls to deep.  Even when my tremors surprise even me or I have no idea where I parked the car…deep calls to deep.  Even when the once-a-year Super moon is out there, but impossible to see (Oakhurst is experiencing a cloud cover) even then I know it is there…deep calls to deep.  Even when I’m lost and not sure how to set my compass…deep calls to deep.

     For today all I need is four words to set my path, to right my daily journey.  Four words that remind me of a great and living truth.  Four words that are truly core words, grounding words.  Deep calls to deep.  And for today that’s more than enough. 
                                                             (thanks to Susie Gentry for this amazing picture of a whale, taken on her Alaskan trip with Gamma)

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