Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Psalms for Today ~ Lectio

 


Read Psalms 109-111

 

This week, we are engaging in an ancient practice of reading Scripture called, Lectio Divina.  A quick review, the steps are:

Step one: read the three Psalms for today slowly, savoring the syllables and noticing the meaning you are making of the sentence.  You are encouraged to write these down.

 

Step two: take a breath and sit with the word or words from the Psalms that you wrote down or circled. 

 

Step three: take a breath and pray your curiosity or frustration that was evoked from step two.

 

Step four: breathe and rest in God, who is our refuge.

 

Step five: embody/enact/intention ~ commit to one action or way inspired by the Psalm today.

 

Let me walk through this prayer practice of reading with Psalm 109 (which I find very challenging to read) as my inspiration.

 

Step one: The words that leapt off the page from this Hebrew Poem: “words of hate and attack me without cause.”  The long list of all the evil the writer wishes on his/her/their enemies (makes social media seem downright quaint and calm).  When do I compare and despair?  When does my inner Chicken Little try to convince others that the sky is falling!?

 

Step two: I sit with the words above, letting what I wrote meet me with love, honesty, grace, truth, and God’s presence.

 

Step three: I pray to God, “Holy Hum of the Universe, there are moments I get cynical, especially when I see others getting ahead through means of injustice.  God, I cry out to You for immigrants who work hard doing jobs others will not do and don’t want to do.  I cry out for those who are being treated as less than human and are targeted.  I cry out to You for our LGBTQ siblings who are constantly dehumanized and have discrimination brought in legislation.  I pray for our African-American, Hispanic, and BIPOC siblings who have always lived with the hostile stare and glare, words dripping with prejudice, that this was never back then and always present tense.  God, I need help because I don’t know where to start.  So give me strength this day to both lament and act; both realize my own complacency and complicity as well as speak out.  Re-order my life with Your realm.”

 

Step four: I wait with God to fill me, mold me, fill me, and send me.

 

Step five: I offer my intention to be a vessel of God’s peace and an instrument of God’s non-violent compassion and extravagant love for the world that is more than I can imagine.  Amen.

Monday, June 30, 2025

Psalms for Today ~ Lectio

 


Read Psalms 106-108

 

As we turn to the last fifty Psalms in the coming weeks, I want to introduce and invite a different way of reading.  The process is called Lectio Divina, don’t let the Latin name throw you, it simply means ~ Holy Reading…and you have already been doing this.  And I hope it is helpful to describe and define the process.  There are five steps to Lectio Divina.

 

Step one: read the three Psalms for today slowly, savoring the syllables and noticing the meaning you are making of the sentence.  Please pay attention to a word that jumps off the page ~ you can circle that word or write it down.

 

Step two: take a deep breath and look at the word or words from the Psalms that you wrote down or circled.  Take as long as you would like to contemplate, meditate, and let those words roam around your imagination.  You may ponder, “I wonder why that word or those words caught my attention?”

 

Step three: take a deep breath and pray.  Maybe you pray for God to cut through the confusion.  For example, I may pray, “God, I want to live verse 3 of Psalm 106 ~ of living Your justice ~ but I get so frustrated by those who hurt and harm others, especially Your beloved on the margin.”  Or may you pray, “God, when like the Israelites wandering the wilderness do I forget You?” (see 106:6 forward for a full, almost exhaustive, and exhausting account of what went wrong in the wilderness).  Or maybe you pray the words of Psalm 107, which to me sound like they inspired the hymn, “Guide Me O My Great Redeemer” and “God of Grace and God of Glory.”

 

Step four: breathe.  Rest in the connection with the Composer and Conductor of our lives, listening to God’s unfinished symphony and sacred silence holding you.

 

Step five: embody/enact/intention.  This is not always included in traditional Lectio Divina, but I like having a commitment that I carry with me.  So, I may say, “God, help me seek justice and be non-violent in my words today.”  Or “God, when the sea billows roll or I feel lost in the desert, help me encounter Your steadfast love” (from Psalm 107).  Or maybe, I pray, “Keep me awake to Your presence wherever and whenever I find myself today.” (from Psalm 108).

 

I will walk through this prayerful reading process each day this week, but feel free to reach out to me if you have questions.  This is a different way of reading ~ it is less about information and more about paying attention and asking God for transformation.  As we head into the last set of 50 Psalms, this is my most heartfelt and honest prayer.  Amen.  

Friday, June 27, 2025

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.  

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Psalms for Today ~ Joy as Protest

 


Read Psalms 100-102

 

Make a joyful noise because you are now two-thirds of the way through the Psalms.  Woo hoo!!  Make a joyful noise because the world needs to hear praise amid all the anger and praise can be protest in beautiful ways.  Make a joyful noise because God is God, God infuses us and inspires us in meaningful ways.  Make a joyful noise because people are still creating new songs and creation is still letting loose with blooming flowers (that I pray you noticed and heard yesterday).  Make a joyful noise because God is still claiming you and naming you, “Beloved.”  Make a joyful noise because right where you are is a sanctuary, a holy place.  There is no place where God is not; God’s center is everywhere, and God's circumference continues to expand and evolve.  As you sing, let the song be for all people and for all our planet to be seen as holy.  Let our song be one of justice, where all can show and share the glory God has imprinted upon each of us.  Let our song be one of integrity, interconnectedness, healing, and wholeness.  Let our song invite people to sing with us, rather than judge those who cannot hold a tune in a bucket or can’t be part of our choir club; let all voices sing.  Let our song leave space for hurt and heartbreak, let our song not try to sugar coat life, but hold space for those who feel like their bones ache and souls churn.  May we listen to the cries, especially of those who are being treated as less than fully human and those who are scapegoated as being the source of all our problems.  Let our songs remind us that we didn’t create this melody we sing ~ from praise to praying our pain has been woven into our DNA from the very beginning.  Throughout the last 100 Psalms, the Hebrew Poet has laid the groundwork for the work of our lives.  In the words you have read, our ancestors taught us the rhythm.  Remember your grandparents and Spiritual mentors gave you the hymnal that plays in our hearts.  This joyful noise expands, evolves, and embraces teaching and telling us how to live our life, especially in these days.  Open our ears, hearts, and whole lives to enter the song You are still composing, O Creator and Conductor of life.  Amen.

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

One New Song and New Sight in Creation

 


Read Psalms 97-99

 

I find the metaphors of the Psalms so powerful and profound.  Psalm 97 invites us to pay attention to creation.  How does what you observe when you step out your door impact and influence your life?   Psalm 98 reminds us that new songs are being created by the Composer and Conductor of life.  Psalm 98 draws our attention to the metaphor of the seas roaring (which in previous Psalms points to the chaos of life), and now the crashing waves of creation help us find new words for a song.  Today, I invite you to pay attention to one part of creation and try to find one new song.  Don’t feel like you must discover some new galaxy or go to the depths of the sea in search of a new creature.  You could notice a different shade of green on a leaf or a blooming plant.  You could open YouTube and search if an artist you like has released a new song.  Or you could go to Amanda Udis-Kessler’s website, queersacredmusic.com, and listen to one of the hymns she wrote in preparation for this coming weekend.  This prayer practice reminds us that God is not finished.  Even though we often think we know the end of the story, where the plotline of the play of life is going right now, we don’t.  There is mystery and movement of the Divine guiding and grounding us in ways we did not see coming.  There are twists and turns, vistas and valleys, good and bad and ugly, and experiences/encounters we cannot classify or compartmentalize today.  The Psalmist’s wisdom is that there is variety in life that we can never exhaust or fully explore.  And yet, we do experience so much more than we could ever fully process.  So today let the invitation of the Psalmist move you to experience something new ~ a song or Creation’s glory on display or an openness to the ongoing, unfolding work of God in these days.  Amen.

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Psalms for Today ~ Emotional Rollercoaster

 


Read Psalms 94-96

 

I think the Psalmist woke up on the wrong side of the bed when they wrote Psalm 94.  I think the Psalmist woke up with a bad case of the “Grumpy Dwarfs”.  And it is so easy for me to think, “Lighten up a bit,” without a hint of irony that I can sound just as defeated and deflated and defiant as the Psalmist, especially after I check my newsfeed on my phone.  I can get frustrated and flummoxed by the state of the world today.  I can feel outrage simmer in my soul, ready to boil over the moment I hear one more piece of bad news from gun violence to war to a multitude of humanitarian crises to cutting funding to the least and lost to how we treat people who immigrate to this country.  To be sure, anger can be healthy.  Anger points out where our values have been violated.  I get upset, smoke fumes from my ears, when I see the beloved of God dehumanized and used as political pawns for power and control.  I get upset when our leaders act like money is the only thing that matters.  I get upset when the word “Christian” is attached to folks who I don’t understand how we are reading the same gospels.  Given this, I relate to and resonate with Psalm 94, where I just didn’t know you could say the quiet part out loud—where God might hear you.  To be sure, I think the Psalms of lament offer us a chance to process our pain so we don’t pass it along.  But, I also know that sometimes I can get stuck, stymied in cycles of cynicism and criticism, where nothing seems good enough.  Then, just when things seem hopeless, helpless, and going to hell in a handbasket, you turn the page to Psalm 95, and it is emotional whiplash.  Suddenly, the Psalmist belts out, “Come, let us praise God!”  Wait, what?  Weren’t we just listing all the ways the world has gone off the rails, now we are supposed to make a joyful noise?  And Psalm 96 continues this theme of singing with Julie Andrews that, “the hills are alive with the sound of music.”  As you read, Psalm 96, there is a gem of a verse, “For all the gods of the peoples are idols.”  This might be a reference to the time in Exodus where the people made a golden calf because Moses was on an extended vacation upon the mountain chit-chatting with God (who approved Moses to have that much time off??).  I don’t have to know if this actually happened, but I know it is true because we still make gods today.  We pour our attention and affection toward influencers, politicians, and athletes because part of us wants to be like that.  At the same time, I know that I will never dunk a basketball or throw a football or hit a ball in any way that anyone would want to pay me for ~ unless it was never to watch me do that again.  The Psalms are complex and contradictory because life is like that.  We can wake up with a case of the “Grumpy Dwarfs,” wear a sneer on our face as if to dare anyone to make us smile, only to have a friend call us and start telling us a joke that breaks through our blahs, turning our souls to dancing.  Life can move from Psalm 94 to 95 in the blink of an eye ~ and back again, too. 

 

As you ponder these three Psalms today ~ where is your soul?  Which lines from 94, 95, or 96 did your shy soul shout, “Amen! Preach!” as you read the words?  Which lines did you cringe and wonder, “Why am I reading the Psalms again?”  As I am reading I think, “Haven’t we reached fifty lament Psalms yet, because it feels like more right now!?  Hold the real, raw, heartfelt, earnest honesty in these Psalms, letting them meet you in the emotions that stir and swirl within you in these days. Amen.

Monday, June 23, 2025

Psalms for Today ~ Marinate


 Read Psalms 91-93

 

Prayer based on Psalms 91-93

Protecting, providing, pervasive God, shelter me amid all that swirls around and surges within me.  I long for you to raise me up on eagles’ wings, where I might get a glance/glimpse of the bigger perspective.  Too often, O God, I don’t see the forest for the trees; I get caught in the weeds.  My normal way of seeing, O God, is to give more weight to the negative and broken, rather than the truth of beauty that sits alongside the bruises of life.  I long to rest and abide in the abode/home of Your affection.  Let Your angels hark, sing into, and shape my life, as they did six months ago on Christmas Eve.  I long to give thanks to You, O God, because Your steadfast love is found in such granular places, when I shift my seeing to what is right in front of me: listening to music; moments of laughter; someone holding my hand; ordinary grace of sunrise streaming in my window right now.  So, awaken me to Your work around me so that You might work through me.  As I continue to marinate and meditate in the Psalms, may the metaphors deepen my connection to You.  When the Psalms disrupt my tidy theology, let these ancient words stretch me in new directions and give me permission to question and hold my doubts.  Thank you, God for how Your presence has evoked poetry and prayer and praise and perplexity that are all still doorways to You today.  In Your many names and how You move in many ways.  Amen.

Psalms for Today ~ Lectio

  Read Psalms 109-111   This week, we are engaging in an ancient practice of reading Scripture called, Lectio Divina .  A quick review, the ...