In A Dark Place – John Valters Paintner

“Jesus [cried] out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ . . . What was Jesus trying to impart with his dying breath? Originally, the Psalms were not numbered as we have them today. And they did not have titles, as such. But our spiritual ancestors would memorize them and know them by the first verse . . . And so one could merely recite this first line and others from the community would call to mind the rest of the psalm. . . Jesus was indeed in a very dark place. . . The psalm he chose to invoke does begin in a very dark place. It is a place we can all relate to.”

— John Valters Paintner, MTS Illuminating the Way: Embracing the Wisdom of Monks and Mystics