Hagah or mental floss

Sirach 5:1-8; Psalm 1 Blessed are they who hope in the Lord; Mark 9:41-50

We read from the very first Psalm today in the response. It is a beautiful psalm that details the path of the righteous and the path of the wicked.

It is like the famous quote from Frost, about two paths diverging in the roads and he chose the one less traveled.

Certainly this could be said of the path of righteousness and the path of the wicked.

The popular path, the one that is well traveled is certainly not the path of righteousness though it is gaining ground.
So let us look at this beautiful psalm that is the gateway to the psalter.

One thing to note is that Psalm one begins with an invitation to obedience, in following the path of God and if we do this faithfully and daily then we embark on a journey that gradually turns into a journey of praise. Gradually the psalter itself moves from an invitation to obedience in Psalm 1 toward an invitation to full praise in Psalm 150.

Obedience leads to praise, unadulterated praise of God. IT is certainly the path worth taking.

Psalm 1 today as this to offer, "Blessed the man who follows not the counsel wicked, who stands in the way of sinners, nor sots in the company of the insolent, But delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night."

First we look at the of the wicked; these are the ones that walk in counsel wicked, stand in the way of sinners, and sits in the company of the insolent.

Notice the progression of the verbs used to describe the state of the of the one who follows this path. He walks, then stands, then sits. Eventually He becomes immobilized or paralyzed, unable to move, frozen and cold by the choosing to linger in the path of wickedness.

This is the same methodology used by Dante to describe the descent into Hell. The closer you get to the center the less movement there is. In fact, Satan is frozen in ice, there is no movement because there is no love of the other. Self enclosed loved leads to isolation, coldness and zero movement.

This is the state of the one who choses the path of the wicked.

But what of the other. He is the one who delights in the Law of the Lord and meditates on his law day and night.

the word delight already suggest warmth. The word meditate in Hebrew is worth looking at. The word meditate is Hagah. This word is used to describe an action. The action is that of a Lion eating his pray and the sound he makes as he fills himself with nourishment. Or it can be used to describe the noise and action produced when a Dog is enjoying a good bone.

To meditate means to chew on, to get every ounce of goodness and nourishment from this thing before you.

Meditating isn't about emptying your mind but rather about filling it. As G.K. Chesterton says, An open mind is like opening your mouth, you do so only to close on something solid.

This is what it means to meditate on the law of the Lord day and night, continually being fed by Goodness.

Most of us only chew on mental junk food. The Psalmist invites us to do a little mental flossing by allowing the law of God to replace the junk.

Unlike the sinners who are frozen and immobile the righteous who meditate on the law flourish like a Tree planted by streams of water bearing fruit and whose leaves never fade.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.