In Psalm 84 the poet shares a deep longing to be in God's temple: "I long and yearn
for the courts of the Lord."
As I've shared in this series on the Psalms, attachment theory describes much of its love language with God. Here we find "proximity maintenance," seeking nearness and closeness with God. It's similar to what we see with Eucharistic adoration in the Catholic church, wanting to be in physical proximity with Christ.
I'm also struck by the strong emotional language. Longing and yearning. People don't typically describe their relationship with God that way. Perhaps because it would be too overwrought to share. But I do think people experience this longing and yearning in what C.S. Lewis described as "Joy." Joy, for Lewis, was an aching, longing, and desiring. During his early life, Lewis didn't know the object of this longing. It was only after his conversion that he came to see that he had been aching for God his whole life. I describe this longing and yearning as "the Ache" in Hunting Magic Eels and trace its path toward God in The Shape of Joy.
The most charming detail of Psalm 84 happens when the poet sees his longing for the temple mirrored in the birds who are nesting there:
Even a sparrow finds a home,
and a swallow, a nest for herself
where she places her young—
near your altars
I love these lines because we can vividly imagine how they were composed. The poet had to be physically present in the temple as he wrote Psalm 84. He's looking around the space and glances up at the sparrows and swallows making their nests in the temple courts. We've all seen this, birds roosting and nesting on buildings. Even to the point of being a nuisance. But the poet of Psalm 84 sees a mirror of his own longing.
Parchment on his knee, the poet sits writing in the temple courts. Gazing around, he looks up and spots a bird nesting above.
Look, he says to himself, even the birds love being here.
