Preparing for the Psalms

 

Last week, I invited you to listen to the melody, music and holy hum hovering in and around your life.  I pray you discerned and discovered the soundtracks in your soul: the rhythms, dynamics, and playlists that are on a loop in your life right now.  We live in a world where there is rarely a measure of rest, where the chaotic thirty-second notes dominate, and everything is turned up to the loudest dynamic and decibel level.  I long for a different wisdom that transcends what we think we know right now.  I crave another way.  Starting next week, I will invite you into a summer with the psalms.  There are 150 songs/poems in the Hebrew hymnal.  The Psalms express, explore, and embody every emotion possible.  There are Psalms of praise sung with joy to Psalms dripping with pain of heartbreak and soul ache.  There are Psalms of comfort, consolation, conflict, and confusion.  Psalms are meant to be conversational.  You do not hold the psalms at arms-length like some social science experiment or graph of numbers.  You enter the Psalms as a dynamic and divine dialogue with your whole life. 

 

Ponder a few quotes about the psalms with me:

 

John Calvin called the psalms, “The anatomy of all the parts of the soul.”  What do those words evoke for you?

 

Eugene Peterson wrote, People look in the mirror to glimpse how they appear to others; we look to the Psalms to find out who we are and whose we are; as we live in relationship with the Holy Other. The Psalms are not some decorative speeches like a throw pillow we can replace to refresh the room.  The Psalms protest that when our eyes are blurred from too much gawking and ears dulled by too much squawking, these holy hymns can clear out the clutter and chaos to create space for God.  This isn’t theology about God, it is connection/communion with God. 

 

Poet Kathleen Norris says that singing the Psalms three times a day reminds us that hymns are meant to bring breath and vibrations of our collective voices raised together.  The Psalms demand engagement, they ask you to sing with your whole self, praying, as St. Benedict says, ‘in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices (and bodies and heart and soul)”

 

The more you sing the Psalms, the more you realize you don’t need to censor your awe, anger, angst, fear, frustration, fascination, or numbness at the world; these emotions leap off the pages of the Psalms to meet you where you are.

 

Over the coming months, I invite you to read the Psalms with me.  You can do however and at whatever pace suits you.  I will be encouraging you to read three Psalms each day.  If that is too much, don’t do it!  There is no grade for completing this assignment or badge to earn for your heavenly sash.  If you start next Monday, May 12, read one Psalm a day; you would end on October 9, 2025.  If you read three Psalms starting on May 12 (with days to catch up), we wrap up on July 18.  Whatever pace you select, I pray you will dive and dwell in the ancient wisdom of the Hebrew Hymnal with me.  Today, I invite you to read your favorite psalm (perhaps 23, 100, 121), let the words wash over you and wrap around you reminding you that you are God’s beloved.  If you don’t have a favorite Psalm, try one of the three I suggest.  I encourage you to read the Psalm, letting each syllable sink into and sing to your soul.  Amen.