Psalm 48: Creating Sanctuaries Of The Imagination
Be a tourist: slow down and try the hummus
How could someone else’s sanctuary city cause you panic?
As I read through psalm 48, I immediately noticed that it was an ode to a city, namely Jerusalem. I tried to imagine what about a city could make others be “stunned, terrified, and panicked” like the intruding kings in 48:6? To have a reaction like a woman in labor (48:7) or fleet of ships being destroyed in a storm (48:8).
What did the interlopers see? Did they witness a festival in which both citizens and visitors were celebrating? Did they notice neighbors helping each other out? Did they watch children playing in the street? Did they notice the people drinking coffee together in cafes, lost in their own worlds? Did they walk through the different neighborhoods and taste the delicious street food of all the various ingathered exiles? Did they see a city who cared for all its residents? Did they witness the joy of the day-to-day interactions?
What visual horrors could have caused such a visceral reaction?
The beautiful thing about lacunae, the missing parts in the narrative, is that they allow us to stop and imagine the unwritten stories. It is the same with walking around a city and trying to ascertain its history from looking at the stone and steel. The stone and steel aren’t the story, they let us know that there is something untold within the walls.
Admittedly, this is a personal reading. You may read this same psalm and see armed sentries, warding off the barbarians at the gate. You may envision some sort of aurora borealis-type lights ensconcing the city. Or you may even imagine the Levites performing in the streets, playing their instruments and singing their songs, inspired by the fact that this psalm is attributed to the Sons of Korah, a Levite. But we are all reading into it something that is not written there.
A city is more than its buildings. Those are built, torn down, and rebuilt. Jerusalem and its buildings are metonyms for something else. Who designed the fortresses and its towers? Who built the walls? Who cobbled the streets? Who washes those walls and cleans those streets?
With this in mind, a possible reading of the psalmist’s advice in 48:13-14, in which he exhorts the reader to walk around the city and pay careful attention, is that he is talking about more than just a physical city. It is to create sanctuaries of imagination for yourself, like he experienced in 48:10, the place where you can go to commune with yourself.
Slow down and become like a tourist in your own city. Rediscover the familiar. Don’t only count the towers, but tell the stories of their builders and inhabitants alike. Instead of the fear of the unknown and the foreign, embrace the new cultures and people you encounter.