David

Joe and I are re-reading Peculiar Treasures, by Frederick Buechner, for Paperback Readers. It’s a slim encyclopedia of Bible characters, their stories reimagined in modern language and sometimes modern settings. It takes liberties with the Biblical narratives in a way that highlights their essential truths and shows how very human and imperfect the Biblical heroes were.

I love it every time I open it.

Reading it, I was inspired to create my own entry—nowhere near the wonder that is Beuchner’s work, but still fun to write. Here is my take on David.

He sat at his desk, the one in front of the palace window with a sweeping view of the city. It was an inspired place to write with his harp by his side, where he could put down the pen and strum a few notes to feel how the rhythm of the song should go. 

The general process was to sit here alone and think about a particular scene in his life: when Saul had him trapped in the cave, or when Saul was still hunting him, or (most painful of all) when he lost his baby son. David would hold his pen and let the memories wash over him, and sometimes the pen almost moved by itself across the page, pushed by the Holy Spirit that drew the praise or the prayers of despair from him, psalms destined to be sung and read through the ages, words that helped people cry out to God.

He reached over now and ran his fingers over the strings, humming a melody line to let the words sort themselves out in his brain. He was good at this. He’d done it a hundred times before. 

But today he couldn’t concentrate, lulled by the sunshine on the grass and the football Absalom and his friends were tossing on the lawn in front of the palace. His eyes followed its arc as the pen dangled from one hand and the other hand plucked idly at strings until Bathsheba walked in and kissed the top of his head, then plopped chubby baby Solomon on his lap, fresh and clean and sleepy from his bath, while she went back downstairs to start dinner.

David settled back in his chair, Solomon snuggling against his chest. On the lawn below, the boys laughed and wrestled; on the streets beyond, people haggled and called to each other and broke bread together. David’s eyes rested on his city, and he pressed his lips to Solomon’s hair. “He makes me lie down in green pastures,” he murmured. “He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.” 

David was a king of war, but for this day, there was peace. He ran his fingers over Solomon’s hair like the softest strings of his harp. “Thank you,” he whispered.

He could think of no sweeter song to sing.