Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.
You all remember Leonard Cohen? He was alive not long ago. He wrote many songs including "Hallelujah," which has been covered by many singers, including, most famously, the tragically late Jeff Buckley.
Leonard sings about a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord. I've always wondered why it was secret and not sacred. "I've heard there was a sacred chord." Even sung that way, it still sounds like a secret, so you don't lose that concept. "I've heard there was this chord." Oh, it's a rumor? A secret? Illicit or elusive knowledge?
And what kind of secret is it, anyway? "It starts like this, the fourth the fifth the minor fall the major lift..." What kind of secret is that? He knows every interval in this chord he's only heard about and it's a secret? How does he know every interval in the secret chord? A chord a baffled king used at least 3000 years ago? Well, he's a kabbalist, we know that about Leonard Cohen. He got the knowledge somehow.
Ancient Jewish secret, huh?
"The baffled king composing Hallelujah." David, like Leonard, was a songwriter. Why baffled? Well, I've heard there's a secret doctrine, a pretty damn sacred secret doctrine about King David being insane.
Baffled king, mad king, the cosmos and the lord filled him. He was full of the lord. And he was insane with his love of God and his openness in song to God.
David, in his madness and love, decided he needed to sin in order to help God have a relationship of sin and redemption with him. Because he was too perfect a servant of God, he was too open to God, he was too full of God like as if to become one unto God!
David was too good. God couldn't handle it. And so David resolved to debase himself with sin, and take Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and bed her in a sinful bed. So he could sin in the eyes God, and by penance be redeemed by God. God likes that. It makes him feel useful.
Talk about creating drama. But that's the kind of relationship they had. God and David. Symbiotically dysfunctional. David's 23d Psalm, you'll remember it if I start, A song of David: The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me etc etc, blah blah blah green pastures, blah blah blah still waters, blah blah blah valley of the shadow of death, blah blah blah fear no evil, rod and staff, set a table, anoint with oil, ah, "My cup runneth over." That's the King James translation.
But as they will, scholars went back to the original to double check the King James version, which it turns out is full, full of errors.
The original ancient Hebrew is: My cup is full. Not running over. Not overflowing. Full. It's sufficient. It's enough. Dayenu, it's enough. Enough already! Stop! When! Stop pouring, you're getting it all over the tablecloth!
It's a good line, my cup runneth over. It's especially good when used as sarcasm. "Cratchett, I'm giving you an eight pence Christmas bonus, what do you think of that?" "Oh, Mr. Scrooge, my cup runneth over."
But it's just wrong. "My cup is full." I am satisfied.
I'm trying to remember, in my own life, to be grateful these days. It's something I must constantly remind myself. Because I was raised to complain about everything. Look around, remember where you are, all the advantages, your cup is full. That said, I'm hosting my brother and his son, who are coming to stay a couple of nights, and I have beds for them, and sheets and pillowcases, but I don't have blankets. Or a kitchen table.
But the blankets, if anyone can spare a couple of warm blankets for 2 nights next week, because I'm literally broke, please hit me up, if I had those my cup would be full.
But my cup is full. I am full. Full of shit! King David was full of shit. The rabbis who came up with their meshuggeneh midrash about meshuggeneh King David? Full of shit. God is full of shit. Leonard Cohen and his not particularly secret chord? Full of shit.
It is important to acknowledge when you are in a state of fullness. Knowing you are full of shit keeps you humble. Knowing you are full of grace makes you available to work for others, for positive change. Knowing your cup is full keeps you from acting from fear and resentment, like the president. Who is the most empty person alive. He's a void. And nature abhors a vacuum, and no one is more abhorred by nature than our president, he's like a black hole, this is why he's turning the nation to shit, because he wants to be full of it. But he will never be full. Because he is too great a hole.
Now, if we can fill ourselves with the fullnesses, and know them, we can aim our self- destructive civilization on a positive trajectory, so that maybe, we will redeem ourselves and our works, in the fullness of time.
Amen. This has been the Moment of Truth. Good day!