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Pure Praise

The women of Cameroon have chosen Psalm 150 as part of their theme for Women's World Day of Prayer today. It is a psalm of pure praise, calling on everything in creation to praise the Lord. Very often our praise of God is qualified in some way: we ask something, or we remind God of a little flaw in what he has created or ordained (we are always helpful, especially when we address the Almighty). Our "yes!" somehow mutates into "yes, but". It is the price we pay for growing up and growing away from the simplicity of children.

True praise is beautifully simple and leads to ecstasy in the literal sense. We stand outside ourselves, our gaze wholly focused on the other, our very body language reflecting the joy and delight we experience. Children and dogs are good teachers of how to praise. When we were reunited with Duncan the other day his whole body was one ecstatic wiggle of delight (PBGVs are well-named "the happy breed"). In England our worship of God tends to the stately rather than the ecstatic, but perhaps we should allow our praise a freer flow. David danced before the Ark, indifferent to the disapproval of his wife or any other onlooker. I doubt whether we'll be wiggling in choir today, but I hope our singing of the psalms will be full of a similar transcendent joy. Let everything that lives and that breathes, praise the Lord!