Psalm 71 16-34

An exercise from In Dialog with Scriptures. As one of the last exercises in EfM we were required to read Psalm 71 in the following manner.
1. Read it out loud as a group
2. Answer: What speaks to me?
3. Read silently on your own
4. Answer: What are the authors tensions or concerns addressed in the Psalm, what are my tensions and concerns addressed by the Psalm.
5. Read aloud
6. Answer: What insights have I gained? What have I learned or relearned about God? About myself? What is the Psalm calling me to do? Can I? Will I?
7. Read aloud entire Psalm as a prayer

I find myself wishing to record the answers because I think that what I scratched up from the depths is something I will need to be able to return to. We all have mental, spiritual and physical places that we must, periodically, return to in the effort to touch base with ourselves. I think that this might be one such spot.

2. I often feel like my life is full of adversity, that I take two steps back for every one step forward, though I know this not to be true because I can see m path behind me when I turn. Perhaps this feeling of working against the grain comes from being risen up, for the act of climbing is more exhausting the that of walking the flat path and your is often obscured by the narrowness of the path and the height of the trees. I may toil, but I do make progress though the price is dear. But always the summit is worth the effort. Perhaps you are the places in the path where my progress is clear, the points in my travel where I can see for miles and know the joy of being surrounded by and one with something so much greater then myself. You are the pauses and the clear view that puts my journey in perspective.

4. The writer is concerned about being forsaken when aged- of not having a purpose of reason. I often fear a meaningless life. I fear a life in which no one can say my being here or my passing affected anyone. Even more then family and love I have and do crave meaning. But more then just having a life where people think well of me- but having a life which people can look back and say because of her a thing was created or discreated. I have always felt a sense of great purpose to my life and fear that it is nothing more then vanity on my part. That this is the course of my life and the extent of my effect upon the world. I fear being useless. I fear impotence. And I fear the vanity that is inherent in that very fear. That my ego will answer the call of the Devil from my greatest strengths, my most sacred compulsions. That I seek my duties not for God nor for my fellow man, but for myself.

6. I have been recalled to the knowledge that Gos is with me, through my hardships and doubts, Gos is with me. He holds me in the palm of his hand and he is the quiet space of my soul that knows the rightness and wrongness of my actions and desires. I have learned that the snake in the grass is myself- my need for greatness and a life less ordinary. I have learned that the arrow that pierces my Achilles heel is also myself- my ego which seeks to glorify God for the sale of myself.
Deeds done well for the wrong reason are still ill deeds, for they bear the fruit of the soil they are planted in. If I am to bear good fruit, then I must tend the soil that nourishes it. My ego is like salt in the soil, withering the fruit- preventing its seeds from sprouting. I am the gardener of my soul and I have been lax. It is time to resume my charge.