Dawn-Watching

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
- Psalm 130:5-6

I visited a couple in the hospital this week. He was in surgery, she was waiting. The surgery was supposed to last three hours - tough enough to busy oneself in old People and Highlights magazines - but then it stretched to seven. Complications. Bleeding. Tissue fused impenetrably. I waited one of those hours with her, as she showed me notes she had written for the insurance company, of the many procedures he had had over the past 12 years.

I marveled at how many times they have had to hope - that this surgery, that treatment, this therapy, that medication would do the trick. It's been a lot of dawn-watching. She mentioned that a chaplain once referred her to Psalm 130. It was a throwaway comment, she wasn't much of a Bible-believer. I wish I had had my Bible with me, and that I knew the Psalms better. I looked up Psalm 130 today, and it is certainly the Psalm of waiting and hoping.

I'm struck by the repetition of the line - "more than those who watch for the morning". Think about those times you've watched for the morning - sleepless, afraid, lost all perspective, most likely. Or think of people who must stand guard over something, the "night watchman" and his loneliness. Vigils. There is such a fierceness in this waiting and hoping. Robert Alter's The Book of Psalms interchanges the words "wait" and "hope", as if the two actions were the same. There is a fierceness in this kind of vigil.

"Waiting for/hoping in his word" is still somewhat mysterious. My fundy upbringing would say it means reading the Bible, and reading it like a form of anesthesia - knocks you right out until God makes things better. But of course the Psalmist didn't own a Bible, didn't have access to Torah, most likely. Alter thinks the writer is waiting for word of God's forgiveness, since there is so much about that elsewhere in the poem. For me, "his word", God's "answer", is looser than that. It may not be an Answer, but an answering presence. Always there, too - it is we who fidget, figure out, move away, panic.

I've always thought that turning something over to God was a peaceful thing, and sometimes it is. I become calmer, I turn away from hand-wringing and heat up dinner. And sometimes it doesn't mean turning away, just waiting with God, trusting that new life will come, is always coming, and there will be something good in it.