Psalms for Today ~ Prayer

 

Read Psalms 103-105

No matter the religion or denomination in which we are raised, our spirituality still comes through the first filter of our own life experience.  —Richard Rohr 

 

What has your experience of reading Psalms been like so far?  I am asking you this intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.  What is lingering?  What has left an impression?  What questions percolate and persist?  Where has your soul been blessed and where have you felt confused and confounded by these ancient words?  “Bless the Lord, O my soul,” Psalm 103 sings.  The soul in the Hebrew Scriptures is not just an organ within us, like your appendix, but your soul is your life force ~ the song you are singing to the world ~ the way you are showing up and what happens when you walk into the room.  Your energy can let loose God’s blessing through you or can hold back (even hoard the blessing).  Your soul can be a flowing stream or a cul-de-sac.  How can you bless God uniquely in the world?  How you answer that is based on your experience in life.  The first filter, as Rohr says above, is the collection of life that is your autobiography.  You are who you are because of where you have been, who you have been around, and how you were taught/told to sing the song of the Sacred.  I encourage you to note verse 8 in Psalm 103, God is merciful from beginning to end.  In other words, God is mercy in every fiber of God’s being. God is grace evolving and expanding. God is abounding in love that radiates from the very center and core of the Creator.  This is one of the most persistent ways the Holy is described.  How do we encounter God in forgiveness, grace (unearned), and love?   How does God’s blessing get a word in edgewise?  I think it is when we mediate and marinate in the forces of grace, mercy, and love that God shows up.  When we focus on grace, mercy, and love, we recall this is who God is.  Psalm 104 points to Creation as a reminder of this.  In the seasons of Creation, there is a time to grow and a time to rest/lay fallow, there is a time to bloom and a time to be barren.  In the world where we think everything must constantly be bigger and better, we work against the very song, rhythm, and refrain of Creation.  No wonder we pave over paradise, because we don’t want to be burdened by living with the land and think we can control the land.  Let these three Psalms today sing truth to your life.  Where does a verse from these three Psalms connect to your experience?  Where does a verse contradict your experiences of life?  Where do you shout, “Amen!” or shout, “Objection!”?  Open your life, your soul, to these words to be for you wisdom in these days. Amen.