Psalm 19—Artwork
Learn more about Christ in the Psalms weekly artwork and see previous pieces here.
Madelyn Houser
About the Artist • About the Piece
A lifelong reader of poetry, I started writing poetry ten years ago while studying math in grad school. I was really interested in how mathematical rules could impose constraints upon literature that led to more creativity rather than less. I consider myself a hobby poet and was intimidated to join Project 101010, however the community and creativity of the project was a true blessing and I can’t wait to journey (again!) through Psalm 11-20 this summer.
While meditating on Psalm 19, I was really struck with how innately creation praises God in verses one through six. The strutting sun, the declaring heavens! I wanted to contrast my own human struggle to know God with nature’s inherent understanding of its own creaturehood. The first stanza is a self reflection depicting my spiritual intellectualizing, seeking to know of and about God without the vulnerability of an embodied living relationship with God. The scholar searches for ‘a clue’ rather than God himself and the dim setting reflects the spiritual darkness of such endeavors. The tower represents my own pursuits to be like God (Babel) as well as my self-imposed distance from the rest of creaturehood. The second stanza takes place outside and is meant to be bright and cheery to reflect the light (of Christ) that nourishes the flower. I chose a flower to represent nature as a whole both because of its rootedness as well as its ephemeral essence highlighted by the more staccato cadence of the words. The mirrored rhyming of each stanza connects the two experiences of both creatures while the inside/outside framing positions those experiences as stark opposites. The scholar is immersed in ‘tomes’ of words but is ultimately disconnected from her own author and unable to recognize his voice while the flower is so rooted in God she is able to speak volumes of the character and identity of her Creator without the need for words.
