Two Ways Of Living

"Blessed is the man 

who does not go where the wicked gather,

or stand in the way of sinners,

or sit where the scoffers sit!

Instead, he finds delight in the law of YAHWEH

and meditates day and night 

on HIS commandments.

He is like a tree beside a brook

producing its fruit in due season,

its leaves never withering.

Everything he does is a success.

But it is different with the wicked.

They are like chaff

driven away by the wind.

For YAHWEH knows the way of the righteous

but cuts off the way of the wicked."

- Psalm 1:1-2. 3. 4. 6

(The sharp contrast between the virtuous and the wicked is characteristic of the Hebrew thought and its uncompromising literary expression.  The psalmist was conscious of the mixture of good and bad in himself and in others around him.  As St. Paul said much later--and he spoke for everyone--'I can want to do what is right, but I am unable to do it' [Romans 7:18].  Aware of this tension in ourselves, we recite this psalm with a feeling of hypocrisy.  This is no proclamation of one's own virtue but a constant self-reminder that we all have a choice.  We may never reach the extremes either of virtue or of vice, but we are at every moment making for one or the other.  It is salutary to remind ourselves what the end of each road is.  It is better still to remember that we have a powerful companion along the virtuous road, but along the wicked one, we are alone.) 

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