Running Deer

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me continually,
"Where is your God?"

~ Psalm 42:1-3

It was the chapel service that clinched my decision to go to the seminary I attended. I had visited several institutions, and come away from each feeling enthusiastic, excited: "I could go here!" But I visited the seminary I ultimately attended reluctantly. It was in the Big City. Which I had always loved to visit, but which I dreaded being in on a regular basis, as a resident or commuter. I just couldn't envision myself there. I was afraid.

So I visited... actually, I used the pretext of the seminary visit to see a friend whom I had been longing to see, who lived not too far away. The visit was complicated, overdue, and in some ways hard. But I made it, and I visited the seminary the next day.

In the morning I attended an Old Testament class, and in the afternoon an early church history class. Both were excellent; neither of the other seminaries had offered an opportunity to actually see professors and students in action, and I was impressed. But it was what happened between the morning and afternoon classes that grabbed my heart and twisted it and told me that, commuting be damned, this was where I belonged.

While in my last semester of seminary I worked with two other students to create a worship service for the community's daily chapel service. We used Psalm 42 as our text, and I wrote a song which I sang as a part of the service. Here are the lyrics.

there's a deer and she's running
running through the woods
she is searching for water
a clear refreshing stream
she is longing, she is thirsting for that water
that deer is me.

I am running, I am running
running through the woods
I am searching for that water,
a sweet living stream
when I find it, that cold, quenching water
I will drink deep

why do I go
so heavy in my soul?
why is my heart cast down, down, down?
when will I
when will I see
the source of that sweetness that keeps eluding me?

oh it's hard to be the child,
the one who is forgotten
the one who is waiting,
waiting back at home
so where are you? and do you remember the love we've known?

you draw me into the darkness
into the beat of your heart
can I rest there for a while?
is there water flowing in the dark?

there's a deer and she's running
running through the woods
she is searching for water
a clear refreshing stream
she is longing, she is thirsting for that water
that deer is me.

magdalenemusic, copyright 2002

Thanks to davidzand Flickr for photo.