The Lord is my Shepherd

In church we sang an old favourite hymn, The Lord is my Shepherd. The poignant tune evoked nostalgic reflections as I wandered down winding musty corridors of memory opening doors on long-forgotten scenes. At one door I saw myself as a Year 9 student at a girls’ only school, dressed in pleated uniform, hat and Globite school case by her side.

Each morning we stood arrayed in neat rows behind our scratched wooden desks to sing the 23rd Psalm, The Lord is my Shepherd, or to recite The Lord’s Prayer. Our morning religious observance at a state high school was unusual even in those days, but from that repetitive practice I could now sing this psalm without glancing at the hymn book.

Through another memory door I saw myself standing at a graveside in the same school. Now, as a teacher, I was presiding at a funeral for an animal slain by dogs that had entered the school farm and run amok. Down the back paddock, one teacher and four students gathered round a covered grave in which lay a little lamb torn apart by those vicious dogs.

One student had asked the ISCF teacher what Bible reading we could use for a funeral and without thinking she had suggested Psalm 23. It felt bizarrely ironic to hear the words describing the love of the shepherd for the sheep while we bowed our heads over a dead lamb.

How would these young girls make sense out of this strange confluence of ideas I wondered? After a prayer by a church girl, we were finishing our little ceremony when another girl, who had worked out that something “religious” was going on, asked if she too could pray. We bowed our heads again and listened to her halting prayer, which revealed her lack of church knowledge and her deep sincerity: “Please God, or whoever else is up there, please look after this little lamb.”

Another door opened unto a television screen. Gary Sweet, starring in a television series, Big Skies, stood awkwardly in a dirt paddock beside the body of an old man who had just died. Gary’s character was the only person there to mark the death of this man.

The only rite of passage he could provide was to sing The Lord is my Shepherd. The camera moved back slowly from a close up of his soulful face as he sang this moving song. The picture frame captured the solemnity of the occasion.

By the third line his voice began to falter. He paused and began again. “The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want ... Something, something, something.” He knew the tune, but not the words.

Of course, we could use this media construction of funerals to bemoan the passing power of the Christian religion. We might lament the paradigm shift from Christendom to a post-Christian society.

On the other hand, we might notice “religious residue” in this Aussie television show where rites of passage are still marked in some way.

Spiritual awareness lies underneath the mix of humour and pathos. How do we fill the empty “something” of so many people? How do we name God for those who yearn to sense life’s sacred depths?

Today people are interested in religious practices that engage their search for spaces and places that meet their deep spiritual needs.

Many people have a spiritual desire that has no content or form. They search for something that weaves together mind, body and soul that are splintered by the daily “piling-up” demands, expectations and stresses.

In our search for the new of immediate relevance, do we still provide rituals that offer a tune to linger in later life, even when the words are lost? How can we give words of faith, meaning and hope?

Christine Gapes