By the Waters of Babylon...

 Do you ever read a Psalm and it just hits you deeply, you pray it and it expresses more deeply what you might want to say or how you are feeling?

Psalm 137 is one of the Psalms that just stands out in sorrowful and passionate beauty--"If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget her skill".  Ever since seeing Jerusalem in the Psalms as a type of the Church or a type of the heavenly Jerusalem, these lines have had a deeper significance.

We are exiles, and they require of us mirth.  "How can I sing the Lord's song in this foreign land?"

It is a haunting psalm deserving of some beautiful music.  The fragments I can hear in my head do not do it justice.

The end too, must not be left off, though perhaps a bit disturbing.  We have had too much white-washed and watered down.  It is better to look at it as it is.  Doubtless, the exile wished vengeance upon his enemies, and doubtless, we must be ruthless in crushing out our little vices that would keep us entrapped in exile in Babylon.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, 

yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. 

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 

For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song;

and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,

Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.

If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;

if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem;

who said, Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof.

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed;

happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.