Psalms 17:7 Meaning Show Your Marvelous Loving Kindness

Mettā: Loving kindness Mettā is the wish that beings be well. Shown, it turns visible: kindness arriving as an outstretched hand a man can see and close his fingers around. Hunted through the wilderness with a case no one will hear, he asks for the marvelous form of it, kindness so steady it startles the one who receives it. Marvelous is the right word for warmth that still holds toward a man everyone else has written off.

Saraṇa: Refuge Saraṇa is going for shelter, the going said aloud three times. It names an act, the way a man caught in a downpour runs for a roof, so the refuge is the running as much as the covering overhead. Those who take refuge have already moved, and their safety begins the moment their hands close on the right hand held out to them.

Saddhā: Trusting confidence Saddhā is the confidence that lets a person commit. Taking hold of a hand in the dark asks for it, since the arm behind that hand cannot be checked before you put your weight on it. Here it is measured by whether a hunted man keeps his grip while the enemies are still circling, and whether he keeps asking after the first night passes with no rescue.

Khema: Safety Khema is security, ground that danger no longer reaches. The old chant calls such a refuge safe and supreme, the safety a man feels once the door is barred behind him and his breathing slows. Saving means that settled ground, not one more ambush survived in a long flight with the same fear waiting at the next ridge.

Averā: Freedom from enmity Vera is the grudge that keeps a fight alive, and averā is its ending. Enemies stand outside with weapons, while the enmity toward them is what a man carries in with him, following him under the roof he just ran to. Hatred never ends through hatred, so the deliverance he asks for is finished only when the feud stops traveling with him.