Dear Friends,
Last week I wrote about what strengthens me during a dark time in our nation: your deep goodness; gathering together in worship; caring for one another with thick, costly love; poetry in general and Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “Paul Robeson” (“we are each other’s / harvest:/ We are each other’s / business: / we are each other’s / magnitude and bond”).
What also strengthens me is scripture, the scripture assigned for the Daily Office, prayed during Morning Prayer, and for Sunday services, snippets lodged in my memory from study, and just about any psalm. No matter how jangled my spirit, how raging my heart, reading, praying with, the psalms provides comfort. This comfort is not a panacea or narcotic that makes me forget my troubles or the troubles of the world; no, this comfort is the comfort that I am part of God’s life and long plan, that God’s people have known the feelings if not the exact experiences that I am having, and that, no matter what, I am not alone.
One of the psalms for morning prayer today (psalm 17) asks God to remember the psalmist and to deliver the writer from the wicked:
8 Keep me as the apple of your eye; *
hide me under the shadow of your wings,
9 From the wicked who assault me, *
from my deadly enemies who surround me.
10 They have closed their heart to pity, *
and their mouth speaks proud things.
11 They press me hard,
now they surround me, *
watching how they may cast me to the ground,
12 Like a lion, greedy for its prey, *
and like a young lion lurking in secret places.
13 Arise, O Lord; confront them and bring them down; *
deliver me from the wicked by your sword.
That’s real talk, Friends, from someone who is intimate with God, feels able to share fear and anger, a desire for violent action, and also trust in God.
This Sunday, we will say or sing Psalm 40 (made famous by U2 with their song “40”—“I will sing, sing a new song . . . How long to sing this song?”), which thanks God for hearing our cry, lifting us up, and putting a new song in our mouth. This psalm and others also acknowledge how frustrated and desperate we can become crying out for help when it seems like no help is coming. But we keep crying out, listening to the cries of others, until a new song is put in our mouths. Keep singing.
See you in church.
Faithfully, Suzanne+
P. S. Small Groups are filling quickly! See announcement link below if you’re planning to sign up and Annual Meeting is just around the corner–please sign up to bring food!