Spiritual Practices and Satisfied Souls

My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night. —Psalm 63:5-6

Psalm 63 is a psalm of David. If indeed King David, God’s anointed, wrote that psalm, it comforts me to think of someone in such a powerful position intentionally putting his own agenda aside to think about God. A great king taking the time to stare at the ceiling in his bed pondering the Divine and his relationship to that Holy Mystery who provides for our every need, and for that meditation to then satisfy his soul—I find it deeply encouraging.

In his song, “Satisfied Mind,” Johnny Cash sings, “How many times have you heard someone say, ‘If I had his money I could do things my way’? But little they know that it’s so hard to find one rich man in ten with a satisfied mind.” With a hyper-individualized culture convincing us that we alone are the fulfillers of our destiny, and that it is our sole purpose in life to gain as much as we can four ourselves in order to have joy, and, what’s more, that the joy we gain from that self-absorbed accrual can never be enough, it is hard to find one person in ten thousand with a satisfied mind. This is where the timeless psalm of King David reminds us of the importance of meditation; the spiritual practice of taking time to ponder holiness and our relationship to the Divine and to one another.

In our Bible studies this week, we shared some of our own meditation practices: reading daily devotionals, using an app that places us in the stories of the Bible for a different perspective on the Scriptures, lighting a candle and praying without speaking any words. With so many ways to meditate on God, it should be easy for us to find satisfied souls, and for us to find ourselves in that contented number. The problem, it seems, is not for lack of spiritual practices, but for anxiousness and pride that prevent us from taking the time to stop and just “consider the lilies,” as Jesus says.

Someone in our Bible study shared that they meditate by going outside in the morning to watch the sun come up, and to return to the outdoors in the evening to watch it go down. Taking those few minutes to witness the bookending of another day reminds her of the vastness of the universe, the expanse of God’s creation and our unique placement in it—each of us fearfully and wonderfully made as essential parts of the whole. To me, that sounds like a centering reminder that we are no bigger than anyone else, which consequently sets us free to love one another and the whole of creation that we share as we love ourselves.

For me, running is a meditative practice. I find it just as beneficial for my body as it is for my mind. During a run the other day I saw an egret take flight a few yards from me. Pausing to watch it glide seamlessly over a body of water, I forgot about myself and meditated on the words of the psalmist: “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3-4). Who am I that God loves me? And yet, God does.

Meditating on the Divine reminds me that I am small, but that to God I am too big to ever be let go from Her steadfast love. I am reminded that I am called to love others and the entirety of creation—the earth and all that is in it—in the manner that God loves me. And meditating on those sacred reminders sets me free from anxiousness and pride, and satisfies my soul.