Psalm 136 is noteworthy for its call and response format. First, there is an expression of thanksgiving, for who God is ("for he is good"), creation ("who spread out the earth on the waters"), acts of deliverance ("who divided the Red Sea in two"), and provision ("who gives food to all flesh"). This is then followed by the repeated refrain, "His steadfast love endures forever."
As I expect you know, the Hebrew word here is "hesed," and it has a wide semantic range. There is a covenantal aspect: Steadfast love, covenant faithfulness, covenant loyalty, faithful love, and unfailing love. There is also an affective, benevolent dimension: Lovingkindness, mercy, compassion, and goodness.
Last month, when I reflected upon Psalm 131, I described how we are selves only in relation. Here's what I wrote, with some edits:
The self is inherently relational. There is no isolated ego or self. We exist only in relation. Thus, I can only come to know, define, and explore myself through relation. Self-help, self-exploration, and self-actualization are, at root, delusional, resting upon a false ontology and anthropology. Consequently, it stands to reason that when the self cuts itself off from relation, and tries to explore, define, and know itself in isolation, it will become disordered and hallucinatory.
As Martin Buber put it, our relation to reality is not I-It, but I-Thou. Object-relations theory, however, would reverse this. Self-definition requires a prior relation. A child comes to know herself in relation to the mother. The relation is Thou-I, where a parental Thou precedes my I. Relation is prior to the self.
As I describe in The Shape of Joy, this is why the science of positive psychology has shown that transcendence is good for us. Our flourishing flows out of a trusting relation with reality. Our I comes into being and flourishes in relation to a prior, parental Thou.
I'd never described all this so clearly before, and since formulating it last month I've returned to this insight over and over again. I exist only in relation, and I can only come to know and become myself in relation to a prior, parental Thou.
We see this relation liturgically enacted in the back and forth of Psalm 136. As you read the song, the self keeps being thrown back into relation, over and over and over. I exist and have my being because of a prior parental love, kindness, and fidelity. And my flourishing depends upon a constant sounding of this relation as the only secure, steady ground in my life. The reference point I require for self-location and self-navigation. Lose track of this relation, fail to sound it, and the self become fragmented, disoriented, agitated, confused, distorted, and phantasmal.
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