Advertisement

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany — February 16, 2025

Teri McDowell Ott reflects on poetry, self-help and Psalm 1.

A graphic with a picture of Teri McDowell Ott behind a lectern in a church and the words "Looking into the Lectionary."

Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
Psalm 1
Year C

In an article on Medium, Jason McBride writes about the transformative change he made in his life: replacing his habit of consuming self-help content with reading and contemplating poetry. All the typical self-help content, McBride writes, can be reduced to the quest for happiness.

We want to be thinner, healthier, and better at this or that skill because we think that will finally make us happier. We want to make friends and influence people because happy people have friends. You probably feel like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle and are searching for the missing piece that is a perfect fit to complete you. But … happiness is not a destination. [Happiness] comes from living in the present moment and having healthy connections to other flawed people.

McBride finds poets to be better life guides, offering the deep wisdom of those who practice paying close attention to what matters. He regularly meditates on Mary Oliver’s question in her poem “The Summer Day,” “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Psalm 1 sets the tone for the Bible’s book of poetry, insisting that “happiness” and “delight” come to those who meditate on God’s Word.

“Happiness” to the psalmist cannot be equated with a consumer-driven mindset, material comforts, or five-easy-steps self-help. Rather, the psalmist understands happiness as dwelling in the presence of God. With Scripture as our guide, happiness can be found in these words so full of sacred wisdom and meaning that we can meditate on them, day and night, and they will continually bear fruit, revealing new truths.

In Walking Light, poet Stephen Dunn reflects on why poetry fails to lure readers in the United States. “Our capitalist culture privileges acquisition over contemplation, the celebration of things more than matters of the soul. People are hungry for meaning in their lives, in need of poetry, yet unaware of it.”

This is the way of the “wicked” in Psalm 1, which, in my opinion, is a harsh way to describe those who are groundless and directionless, easily blown about like “chaff” in the wind: Harsh because I often find myself in this “wicked” class. We can all recognize times in our lives when we felt unrooted, blown about by every trend, lacking substance and sustenance, quickly clicking the “Buy Now” button for the book that will solve our procrastination problem, the wrinkle cream promising to return us to our 20s, the containers that will magically organize our closets and feng shui our life.

In her Feasting on the Word commentary, Rebecca Blair Young notes the groundedness of those who are happy:

The first verse of the psalm explains that happy people will never walk, stand, or sit with the unhappy ones. Already one recognizes that the unhappy life consists of constant movement: walking here, standing there, sitting a moment, then jumping up and starting over again … Engaged in constant movement, nothing ever satisfies so they are always seeking the next thing, the new contact, or the greater high.

The happy know where to plant themselves and root in that one nourishing location, where they can drink deeply to find sustenance and satisfaction.

Psalm 1 sets the tone for the Bible’s book of poetry, guiding us from the beginning in how we should read the whole book — slowly, meditatively, contemplating ourselves and the world in relation to our God. Read the psalms like trees planted by streams of living water. Read to feed your soul, and in due time, this practice will bear good and faithful fruit.

Questions for reflection on Psalm 1:

  1. In what ways do you need self-help and where do you typically turn to meet this need?
  2. How do you typically engage scripture? How might you engage more deeply?
  3. What does happiness mean to you? How does your idea of happiness coincide with the psalmist’s understanding of dwelling in the presence of God?

View the corresponding Order of Worship for the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
Sign up for worship resources in your inbox every Monday.

LATEST STORIES

Advertisement