Singing the Psalms

One of the spiritual practices that has been most helpful to me is "singing the Psalms." A number of years ago, I had been trying to read the Bible daily and that just seemed too hard and dry, and then I found this article Introduction: Praying the Prayers Jesus Prayed: Learning to sing the psalms by Cynthia Bourgeault.

Music has always been a way to God for me, and music proved to be my path into the scriptures as well. While I do not always read the Psalms daily, at key times in my life I have read or sung the entire book of Psalms several times as a part of a daily morning and evening practice. Inspired by references to Benedictine monastic practices of singing or saying the Psalms daily in The Holy Way by Paula Huston, I thought that I would re-institute my cycle of Psalms calendar. This calendar includes readings morning and evening and you can read or sing or chant all of the Psalms in six weeks. So if you start on the first Sunday of Lent, you'll be done by Easter.

If you right-click you can get a larger printable version that you can print out for your own use. I also have this in an Excel spreadsheet that I could share—useful for when you want to change the starting date, and all the other dates will change. Leave me a comment with your email if you are interested.

One of my dear friends gave me the St. John's Illustrated Book of Psalms as a graduation present from seminary. This beautiful work of art is a double inspiration as I use it for my Psalm singing. One of the features of this edition is that each Psalm is categorized. According to their categories, with some Psalms being split into two categories, there are 57 Psalms of lament, 27 Hymn Psalms, 18 Psalms of Thanksgiving, 11 Psalms of Confidence, 11 Psalms of Wisdom, 10 Liturgy Psalms, 9 Royal Psalms, 6 Psalms of Zion Sings, and 5 Historical Psalms.

So, if as you go through you think that the Psalmist was wailing and whining a lot, it's true. More than a third of Psalms are lamenting or complaining to God. I think that is a useful reminder that our relationship with God can include complaints about God's behavior and anger at God and questions to God.

I would also highly recommend these singable inclusive language psalters: The Psalter by Gabe Huck, unfortunately out of print, but available used, and Psalter for the Christian People by Gordon Lathrop and Gail Ramshaw. Nan Merrill's Psalms for Praying goes even further in re-imaging the some of the militaristic and patriarchal language of the Psalms.

Someone once said that the Psalms cover every conceivable human emotion, so reading or singing the Psalms is very therapeutic. I hope that you enjoy your journey through the Psalms. If you want to delve deeper, Cynthia Bourgeault has an audio CD with a booklet of singing instructions, Singing the Psalms, and a book with an instructional CD, Chanting the Psalms. What is so helpful about Bourgeault's recordings is that they are of an ordinary singer doing this in everyday life. When I sing the Psalms early in the morning with a frog in my throat, it is not about a public performance, but about opening myself and the world to God's presence through the Psalms.

p.s. Realizing how limited time can be on weekday mornings, I also created a cycle for just weekends. This will take less than six months. See below:

Listening to the Sun

This time of year it is possible to watch the sun rise without losing any sleep. Even though I am usually out of bed before the sun, in my morning routine, from my urban/suburban living room, though, I do not take the time just to sit and watch the sky brighten over the trees and the neighbors' houses to east. With the lengthening days, I am usually out of work and headed west as the sun is setting, but I don't really notice that either except for the solar glare as a driving hazard.

Author Paula Huston writes of her experience of sitting in solitude at sunrise and sunset, "I began to get a sense, which I hadn't had in years, of being part of all this: the sun's rising and its setting, the day's beginning and ending cupped in two palms far larger than my own. (The Holy Way, p.18)

Psalm 19: 1-6

The heavens declare the glory of God;

the sky proclaims its builder's craft. (New American Bible)

One day tells its tale to another,

and one night imparts knowledge to another.

Although they have no words or language,

and their voices are not heard,

their sound has gone out into all lands,

and their message to the ends of the world.

In the deep has God set a pavilion for the sun;

it comes forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber;

it rejoices like a champion to run its course.

It goes forth from the uttermost edge of the heavens

and runs about to the end of it again;

nothing is hidden from its burning heat.

(Psalter for The Christian People)

She continues after quoting Psalm 19, "I asked myself how I had so entirely lost this knowledge for so many years. How had I lost my membership in the great creation? (The Holy Way, p. 19)

Could we try this at least as a weekend practice during Lent? What if we allow ourselves fifteen minutes to read and meditate on this or another Psalm, and sit in solitude with the sun as company?

As I write this, I'm "on retreat." I am sitting in the afternoon sunshine, snug inside on a windy winter day. The wind has blown away the morning's clouds, and the sun is warming me in a way that the electric heat could not. I can see ocean's edge across the dunes—the sun's track is silver white now across the water, running its course toward the western edge. Even this, just sitting in the sun and absorbing its heat—something I loved as a small child when the afternoon sun warmed my bed and let me succumb to an afternoon nap, even if I didn't want it—I seem to have forgotten how just to let myself hear the message that one day tells another, and bathe in the warmth of creation. I think I can stop writing now and just sit in the sun and listen to the firmament declaring the glory of God.

Hit and Run Preaching?

The morning after doing supply preaching I often wonder whether I've been like a hit and run driver leaving the scene of the accident. Would I preach a different sermon if I thought I would be seeing those people next week? Of course I would. Or would I? The irony is those times I have been invited back and then, there I am, at the scene, and it's a different collision than the last time.

Yesterday in my boldness I suggested that Peter's excerpts in Acts 1: 20 from the vengeance Psalms 69 and 109 weren't really the witness that Jesus had just commanded them to have. While blotting someone out after betrayal is an all too human reaction, perhaps it's not the abundance of the heart that we are called to have. I quoted from Luke 6 about fruits of good and evil. I used Psalm 1 as my first reading about trees bearing fruit in their season. I closed with Galatians 5, fruit of the Spirit. Today I'm going to work in my garden after all of those fruit and tree references.

The best comment after the sermon was "I liked your sermon and you're right about the betrayal and the way people talk—too bad that the people who needed to hear that weren't here." Hm...

Then the deacon who had invited me said that she would call me again. Well, we have to trust the Spirit's leading on what happens then.

The next best comment, which I heard from at least two people, was that I was the first guest minister they've had who can really sing. While I am a singer and often a vocal soloist at my home church, I have to wonder at what that statement says about my colleagues in the pulpit. I am a worship leader, even as a guest preacher, so I put together the entire service when I am preparing, not just a sermon. Although the deacon said I could just give the scripture and sermon title to the secretary and let someone else pick the hymns, I can imagine that might not be the best way to have hymns that I know and can lead, and I wonder if that's what my colleagues did. I picked the hymns for the service, but I did consult with the secretary about whether the congregation would know those hymns.

So, those of you in the greater Boston area, or even in eastern Massachusetts, RI, or southern NH who need summer supply, feel free to contact me. Unless you tell me that your congregation needs it, I won't preach on betrayal, but I will lead worship and preach as the Spirit leads.


For those folks with interest in such things, I can provide a password-protected link to the final paper that resulted from my directed study, excerpts of which have appeared in postings on this blog in the past five months:

The state of welcome, inclusion, affirmation and placement
of women and LGBT people as clergy,
focusing on the American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts

Just let me know your name and email via a comment (which I won't post here). It's 66 pages, with a fair number of charts, so rather too large a file for emailing, so I've put it on a website and then I'll send you the link. At this moment I want to manage the distribution of this paper (I'm still in the ordination process, you know), so I would appreciate some description of your interest and who you are. :-)

Lament on Maundy Thursday

Last night at Easter choir rehearsal, our choir director shared a tragic story about friends of his—the wife is dying of cancer, the husband lost his job because his company wanted 80 hour weeks from him, and their nine-year old son doesn't want to talk about how mommy is going to be getting a lot sicker. They ask for prayers.

After rehearsal I stopped to talk with a fellow choir member. His wife is taking a job in another city after two years of a local job search because she's a woman of integrity and is tired of being the only person at her workplace who understands that you have to say no before you start down the slippery slope. Her husband is taking an "early" retirement package and he and their girls will stay here until school is out, and then move. They have been and will continue to be in my prayers. I'll miss them.

As I drove home last night, and again tonight as I was driving home from a particularly thought provoking Seder (we used the Freedom Seder by Rabbi Arthur Waskow), the setting of Psalm 130 by Martin Luther, translated by Catherine Winkworth, with a blues arrangement by my friend Arthur Hock, came to my mind (sorry, not published or recorded for public use). On this night in the Christian tradition, where Jesus supped with friends and then was betrayed, and as we pray for friends in these kind of tough situations, surely this is one of the Psalms of Lament that we can and must sing to the blues.

Out of the depths I cry to Thee;
Lord, hear me, I implore Thee!
Bend down Thy gracious ear to me;
I lay my sins before Thee.
If Thou rememberest each misdeed,
If each should have its rightful meed,
Who may abide Thy presence?

In the face of loss and grief, I feel called to witness, to hold the pain for a bit, to make space for lament. Tonight we sit in the garden, falling asleep, while someone cries, out of the depths of pain. God hears, God knows. Amen.