Doe of the Morning

By: Psalters

I. Doe of the morning
Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani [Aramaic]
(My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?)
Was it the tune of the Doe of the Morning
My Savior sang as he died?
Did anyone join as our Singer departed
As the darkness took the light?
As broke down song in the dust of death
Tore that veil the earth did shake...
On that hill they called Skull
Graves did split, brung dead to wake...
 
[spoken word-Psalm 22]
"The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the LORD will praise him--may your hearts live forever!
They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn--for he has done it."
 
A wrecking ball were the trumpets soundin'
As the walls of Jer'cho fell...
And through these songs the Spirit's a-movin',
Sometimes we sing sometimes we yell
[spoken word-Bishop Desmond Tutu]
"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land."
Now the Land of the Living feels me footfalls.
We are walking onward to where the Spirit calls.
I'm Yours, We're Yours, and Yours.
Tishoumaren*, pain and joy...it's the song of the unemployed
Your heart is a muscle the size of your fist.
So raise it, to love like Jesus, we must resist.
It's Yours, they're Yours, and Yours.

-from the 2011 album, ch. VII carry the bones

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NOTES ABOUT DOE OF THE MORNING:
1). My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
When Jesus was dying on the cross according to Matthew 27, he cried out in a loud voice “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabbachtani.” 
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Matthew 27:45-54 
45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli] lemasabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
In English, this phrase is understood to mean “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Hebrew-eli, eli lama azavtani).  It is also the first line of Psalm 22.

Psalm 22 (read the whole thing)
    For the director of music. To the tune of “The Doe of the Morning.” A psalm of David.
 1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 
   Why are you so far from saving me, 
   so far from my cries of anguish?

2). Maybe Jesus was leading worship while dying?  
When Jesus was dying on the cross, he might have actually sung a tune (Psalm 22) which is set to the music of the mysterious song "the doe of the morning"before he died, although he only yelled/sang/choked the first line. This is a tribute to that melody-a reverberation of the power of that melody, that was used as part of a prophecy not only of Jesus' death, but that through his death/resurrection God's alternative plan to "the world" would be actualized more fully.  We are trying to live into that.

3.) The story of Jericho 

Joshua 6:15-21
 15 On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. 16 The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city! 17 The city and all that is in it are to be devoted[a] to the LORD. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.18 But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it. 19 All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the LORD and must go into his treasury.”
 20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city. 21 They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.

4). Subversive poetry.  
Leo Marks wrote poems on silk cloth, short wave radio, and telegraph for agents living in Nazi occupied Germany. These poems were codes that Axis forces had trouble cracking, using poetry was a huge innovation. 

Marks’ most famous poem used for sending messages is still 

"The Life That I Have"...
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours
And yours
For the years I shall have in the long green grass
Are yours and yours and yours.
 
There is this Trinitarian beauty to his poem.  We sing “I’m Yours, we’re Yours, and Yours” in the first verse, a dedication of ourselves as individuals and collectively to belonging to God.  Later in the song we sing “It’s Yours, they’re Yours, and Yours” referring to our hearts & our fists that we are raising-our hearts & actions also are worship to God both in love, loyalty, resistance and creativity. 
This is a subtle nod to Marks and coded, subversive poetry.  We’re trying to carry on a similar legacy.

-Joshua Grace (psalter)

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Psalters

"is and was always intended to be a community of worship musicians seeking to be informed by the Way of Christ in sound, in word, in action, and art.”-Scott Krueger (AKA Captain Napkins)