PSALM 21 – Regal joy through curiosity and compassion

Reclaiming and Sustaining Love

א.

Hail the power of a regal joy, rolling in

like the cool and ethereal moisture of a redemptive mist,

lubricating locks on the brow with a crown

of joy [מ] cultivated through curiosity [ל] and compassion [ך].

This is the true desire of the heart-and-soul entrusted to humankind,

A deep yearning wetting the lips calling out to a gladness

within the reach of community, caring and curious. Selah.

Crowns woven of shared blessings are coming

for your head and mine, faces beaming with joy.

Want to live? Request granted.

Now lengthen your days with joy.

Seek out these signs of greatness:

honor inspiring service;

gratitude growing grace and beauty;

humility paired with equanimity.

Put them into practice and watch the blessings abound,

testimonies to the presence of joy showing on your face.

Curiosity flowing from minds choosing trust,

compassion from faithful hearts and generous hands –

crowning the brow and steadying the hand with lasting joy.

ב.

The outstretched hand of a regal joy is there in every struggle as well,

a generous hand extending itself to reroute hate with curiosity right into compassion.

When the flames of anger light up your face like a stovetop,

pause, summon the nameless breath of life. Stay the course

and the reactionary anger will consume itself.

The offspring of a once righteous rage now serving only an inflated pride,

becoming sterile seeds and harmless sparks carried away by wind-breath,

uprooted from the fields of earth and hearts of humankind.

Anger gone awry is an awful distraction

spoiling the mind and crippling its capacity.

When joy-through-curiosity-and-compassion wear the crown,

wayward sons, Simon, Levi, and the lesser me,

are recalled and brought back from Shechem, from their self-serving pride

by awareness aimed like an arrow at a shared source of lasting joy,

by a torah of abundance etched into faces beaming beauty of every color.

Yes. Lift up the power of joy through curiosity and compassion.

Yes, let’s chant and sing ballads of orphans[1]

with symphonies of kings.

[1] The Hebrew words

for ‘bastard’ and ‘song’ share the same consonants: MaMZeiR, and MiZMoR.