Can you remember what it felt like to skip around when you were a child? Those days are over for me, but if you’re able to skip around the room, you might try it right now. See how it feels. I suspect you’ll find yourself smiling as the playfulness of childlike delight courses through your body freeing you from the seriousness of what’s going on in the world around you. Our psalmist today is looking for words to describe the joy we feel when we recognize the hand of God at work in the world. He enthuses, “The mountains skip like rams, and the little hills like young sheep.” A shepherd would be familiar with the gamboling of the animals in his care, as well as the immovability of the mountains and hills around him, yet such juxtaposition indicates how impossible it feels to have language to describe our experiences with the Divine Presence manifesting in our lives.

Like so many of our biblical examples, Moses, Samuel, Zechariah, and Mary come immediately to mind, we are surprised to become aware of the Holy One in the here and now. We may feel stunned by the experience, overwhelmed with questions as were our spiritual forebears. When we try to put the experience into words, we find there are none that are sufficient. Nothing comes close to expressing the awesomeness we felt so we, like our psalmist, resort to analogies that still don’t quite do it.

The skipping of creation calls me to let go of my inhibitions, to skip with God, to be playful, to respond to the Beloved’s presence with joy and delight. Perhaps it is that carefree spirit that Jesus was referring to when he told the disciples, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt.18:3-5)