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Psalm 51: A Troubled Spirit PDF Print E-mail
Anne Ogden / A Voice from the Wilderness
Written by Anne Ogden   
Sunday, 22 February 2009 13:02
Anne OgdenI am preparing to return for tests to the Myeloma Institute in Little Rock where I underwent two stem cell transplants in 2004, as I have returned at least yearly since then. Anticipating tests, undergoing them and waiting for results are common experiences for anyone with cancer, potential cancer or other life-threatening illness. However common these procedures are, they are not ordinary, but are indeed intense and exceptional in the moment. These are truly “tests” in many ways—life takes on an edge, an alertness.

I recently rediscovered this psalm meditation, written two years ago as I was anticipating a trip to Little Rock. The question I ask myself again, each time I return, is: am I better prepared for this journey; what have I learned?

Psalm 51

    Have mercy on me,…
    that the body you have broken may rejoice….
    Cast me not away from your presence
    and take not your holy spirit from me….
    The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

I am tempted to meditate on some of most familiar lines from Psalm 51, read on Ash Wednesday: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me….Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit.

There is hope in those lines—a clean heart, a right spirit, joy in God’s saving help, a bountiful Spirit. Instead, I am drawn to the images of the broken body, the fear of absence, a troubled spirit and a broken and contrite heart.

These words of brokenness and fear were the ones that gripped me on March 5, 2004, as I anticipated the reality that my own body would be broken by chemotherapy within the month. In my journal I wrote:

I am trying to learn how to face the unknown, the frightening, the terrifying. It is holy work, my psychologist says. The spirit will come in the form that I need, and the helpers will come. Open myself to them and they will find me.

It is now three years later, again Lent, and I am anticipating a trip to Little Rock in several weeks for a check up and tests. It has been nine months since I have been there. I have sent blood by mail once a month, but I have not asked about the results. The tests I became familiar with—bone marrow biopsy, PET scan with injected radioactive dye, a three-hour MRI—will be repeated. Then there will be results reported.

I do not want to return to the place of descent. I am anxious. Dreams are disturbing. I remind myself: I am in a different place now. I wonder how the experience has changed me and how, now, do I face the broken body, the blood poured out, the troubled spirit, the broken heart?

Renew a right spirit within me. Give me the joy of your saving help again. Sustain me with your bountiful spirit. Here I am, again, wherever that is. Maybe I have not learned enough yet. Maybe the journey to the deep is one that needs to take place again and again. Maybe I will find a new spirit within me. Maybe this time my broken body will rejoice. Open myself. I will be found. (February 23, 2007)


What have I learned, I ask again? It all sounds so familiar. Adrenalin still surges. Anxiety still charges my body and spirit. But this year there is something different…I listen….

I am paying attention in a more profound way. I am grateful in a more profound way. I am amazed by life in a more profound way. The gift of doing this again is that I am alive; I am doing it again.

February 22, 2009
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