Next meeting this Tuesday, October 2

Our next meeting is this Tuesday at the Johnsons' home, 7-9 as usual.  Joe and Carolanne are cooking and we'll sign up for meal-nights when we meet.  Whether or not you've been reading the psalms this week you'll be able to join in the discussion (there's never "homework" for this group).  2-3 psalms a day gets us to Psalm 37, which we will probably look at together. But particularly interesting is the variety of ways-of-praying that we see in Psalms 22-25.   That's probably where I'll start, as we discuss the contexts of these prayers and how they do (and don't) resonate with us today!

I will likely be hanging out at the Starbuck's in Oakton VA for a few hours before our meeting this week - my usual practice to get out ahead of  the traffic. I expect to be there starting around 4:00.  If you're just reading about this group online, or if you're in the group and just want to chat, feel free to come find me there!

Looking forward to seeing you all on Tuesday - please spread the word and bring a friend if you can.

Off to a Good Start

Find it here

We were off to a good start for the fall last night.  Grateful, once again, to Tom and Mary for opening their home to us.  Welcomed one newcomer, Chad.  And began with an overview of what it means to pray the psalms.  Our plan for the fall will to try to read 2-3 psalms each day,  so between now and our next meeting, October 2,  we'll read through psalms 1-37.    We used verses from psalms to do a kind of survey of the prayer-places that psalms take us to. These include: 

Places of "orientation" and confidence:  (Bless the Lord, O My Soul, and all that is in me, bless God's holy name! (ps 103:1)   (The heavens declare the glory of God!  Ps. 19:1)

Places of "disorientation,"  suffering, confusion:  ("Save me, O God, for the waters are up to my neck" (ps 69:1); "Keep not silence O God, and be not still" (ps 83:1), even "How long will you forget me, O Lord? Forever?  How long will you hide your face from me? " (ps 13:1).    Songs of lament,  and even disturbing prayers for vengeance against enemies,, as well as prayers of repentance, come up in these psalms.  We talked a little - and will talk more about how these psalms speak both of the experience of Israel, the people of God, as a community, and about our own personal experiences of God.

Places of "re-orientation," and transformation:  An assumption in the psalms is that the best place to be is a place where we are able to praise God with our whole hearts -- the themes of covenant and "righteousness," which we'll talk about, point to that place where we are at peace with our lives and with God, even when we are facing trouble.  It is a place of deep honesty and continuing growth -- some of the psalms capture this, e.g. Ps 46: "God is our refuge and strength. A very present time of trouble. Therefore we will not fear. . . .") or the last few psalms, which buildup to the final verse of Ps 150 "let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!"  

Deeply embedded in the psalms is a confidence that God is in the midst of everything, even the deepest "pit" experience (a vivid image that comes from the psalms).  I invite you this fall to spend some time with these ancient prayers and see what parts of them you can "make your own" -- try different translations. The King James version is beautiful for the poetry though sometimes archaic in its worldview;  Eugene Peterson's The Message, or Nan Merrill's Psalms for Praying make the psalms more personal, even, sometimes, when the original psalm is really more about a communal than an individual experience.  We will look at all these dimensions of the psalms in our study time.

So here's a tentative look ahead to the fall (think about whether you can cook one of these days and we'll try to fill out the calendar next time -- or email me at kathleen.staudt@gmail.com for more info and/or with preferred dates to cook - no one should feel they HAVE to cook but I know many people like to!)

October 2:  Ps 1-37  (Joe and Carolanne are cooking )

October 16: Ps. 38-74

November 6:  Ps. 75-118

November 20:  Ps 119 - the theme of "faithfulness"

December 4:  Ps 120-150

December 18:   Christmas party Reflections (prayer practice for today based on favorite psalms from the fall - stay tuned.)

I should add that this language about "orientation" -"disorientation" - "reorientation" comes from scholar Walter Brueggemann, who has written several books about the psalms, including Praying the Psalms and Meditations on the Psalms.  I'll be drawing on his work as well as Denise Dombrowski Hopkins, Journey through the Psalms. -- good resources if you want to read further, but not by any means "assigned."