Plane Poem | Psalm 8

Oh LORD our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

I am no god and yet
I look down upon the earth below,
brown and wrinkled as the back
of an old man’s hand.
I am no angel and yet
I consider your heavens,
consorting with clouds
whisped and white as
a crooked crone’s crown.

Who are we, that You think about us?

If I ascend
to the heavens, you are there;
if I descend
to the depths of the earth,
You are there too—You,
the ageless one who stooped
into time, scooped a bit of earth
into your uncreased palm,
and breathed.

Who are we, that You care for us?

And here I float
somewhere between heaven and earth,
youth and old age—I,
who am made of deity and dirt,
a little lower than the angels
suspended and held
by the clouded breath of God—
crowned with a glory and honor
I cannot explain.

Oh LORD our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

It may come as no surprise to you that I composed this poem while on an airplane, my eyes getting dryer by the minute from the unceasing stream of filtered air coming from above my seat, my heart wondering how it is that I get to gaze upon the Colorado desert—sensing in some tiny way what the resurrected Jesus might have seen when he ascended into heaven before his disciples’ watching eyes. I felt as if I was peeking over the shoulder of Jesus as I pictured how the clouds must have looked beneath his feet, watching with as the brown and scrubby land of Israel and the upturned faces of his beloved ones faded from view. Was Jesus sad when he left them? Yes, Jesus is God and is with us at all times. But Jesus is also human, and so I wonder if he felt that particular pain of saying goodbye to a loved one, knowing that you will likely never see them again in this lifetime. Did Jesus keep waving for his own heart’s sake, even when he knew the disciples could no longer see him?

We live in the time of tension between Jesus’ ascension and return. And we feel it all too well, don’t we? Romans 8 tells us how all Creation groans with longing for redemption. How Creation must have rejoiced at the birth of Christ, along with the angels! Yes, Jesus left his Spirit with us. But I wonder if the earth wept, too, to be parted from its Creator in human form until he comes again. How often do we think about this: that the earth from which we were sculpted joins us in our unspeakable longing for all things to be made new? And yet the earth still sings God’s name.

In Psalm 8, David looks up at the starry heavens and looks down at the verdant earth beneath his feet and concludes:  

LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

(Psalm 8:1,9)

I do not believe David is speaking in metaphor here. God truly has written the divine Name in all the earth. Creation is God’s artful love letter to us, and every time we read the words of dancing branches and birdsong, of mud puddles and magpies, we join the song that all creation has been singing since before time began. When we marvel at God’s handiwork, we encounter the Word that breathed everything visible and invisible into place and called it good.

Last week, Drew and I were in the backseat of a car that was taking us from Malibu to LAX after a conference. We had over an hour to gaze at the beauty around us—the azure ocean to our right, the blossoming Santa Monica Mountains to our left. My neck began to hurt as I constantly swiveled between water and land, hungrily drinking in the sun-kissed glory as if my life depended on it. And maybe in some way, it does. As we neared the airport and traffic slowed to a crawl, my gaze was caught by a tall and supple young tree that had taken root in the middle of an urban slab of concrete. The wind played with its leaves, making them shimmer in the afternoon light and suddenly it hit me: What if this is what the redeemed Creation looks like? Maybe every time the wind blows, it animates nature from within to show us just how alive God’s Creation truly is and one day will be in all its fullness. I smiled to think of how the window of our Uber became a portal through which I glimpsed a hint of the New Creation.  

When we arrived home, I wrote these words in my journal: 

And how the wind animates all from within,

enlivening trees to sway and leaves to dance

in a foreshadowing burst of eternity,

as if to show us for a moment, dimly,

how it is that every living thing sings your praise—

all of us swept up in the current of your Loving.

If this week’s post is anything, it is simply this:

A celebration of the beauty that sings all around us
and an invitation to sing our part in that chorus
as we eagerly await the One who was, and is, and is to come.

May you never forget how marvelously, how uniquely you sing our Creator’s name—how the very thought of you takes God’s breath away.

Amen.

Going Deeper: Listen to “So Will I (100 billion x)” by Hillsong.

And as You speak
A hundred billion galaxies are born
In the vapor of Your breath the planets form
If the stars were made to worship, so will I.

I can see Your heart in everything You've made
Every burning star, a signal fire of grace
If creation sings Your praises, so will I
So will I.

P.S. I will not be posting here for the rest of the month as I will be traveling with my dear family. Thank you for taking the time to read my words—it means the world to me!