Psalms – All the Wonders

Quickly

May there be no breach in the walls, no exile,
and no cry of distress in our streets.
-Psalm 144:14

Holy One, the walls have been breached.
Your people are crying,
and we are in exile in our own land.

What is this place where we now live?
Hate marches down city streets at the noon of day.
Abusers walk the halls of justice and power.
Children are stripped from their mothers’ arms and sleep in cages at the border.

Holy One, where are you today?
The evildoers hold the fortresses of power.
The exploiters of the poor grow in their wealth.
Your little ones languish in despair.
Calls of distress go ignored in the streets.

Where is our hope?
Where is our rescuer?
Come quickly, God of Compassion
Come quickly to save us.

This is my conversation with Psalm 144:14 from the Pilgrim Press Book, The Words of Her Mouth: Psalms for the Struggle. Image by David Ramos on Unsplash.com.

New Release: The Words of Her Mouth

Last summer, just as I was preparing for my writing retreat at the family cabin, I received an invitation from Rev. Martha Spong to contribute to a book project. Spong is the Executive Director of RevGalBlogPals, founded in 2005 to minister to and with clergy women around the world.

The Words of Her Mouth is a collection of 150 original psalms written by ten women who are Christian pastors and leaders representing diverse races, orientations, and denominational affiliations. Each writer composed fifteen psalms in conversation with the Biblical texts.

The writing assignment was the most writing fun I think I’ve ever had. I was assigned one of my favorites — Psalm 63, the psalm we often sing in morning prayer service of the Academy for Spiritual Formation. (The other psalms with which I dialogued for this book are Psalms 9, 20, 28, 37, 48, 56, 72, 83, 92, 101, 114, 121, 135, and 144.)

These words from Psalm 63 caught my attention: “I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night.” Then I wrote about how, when I can’t sleep at night, I think of and focus on everything else except God! (What funny creatures we are!) My Psalm 63 closes with this intention, “Next time I cannot sleep, may I remember the saints through the ages who awoke in the night.”

I hope you’ll enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing for it. You’ll find it at Amazon and your favorite booksellers.

Nashville in Exile

Nashville Downtown Flood Panorama by Kelsey Wynns

By the rivers of Babylon —
there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion.

On the willows there we hung up our harps.
For there our captors asked us for songs,

and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?

– Psalm 137:1-4 (NRSV)