The old and the new

We did some RB with both the Old and New Testaments during our weekend on Gateways into Prayer at Offa House.

This photograph of a lovely tree from the churchyard reminded me of the Psalmist saying 'hide me in the cleft of your rock' although obviously this is a cleft of a tree but similar. We did some RB on psalms and participants had quite a lot to offer. There were bits of psalms that were important to them:

I will lift mine eyes to the hills

God is our strength and refuge

The Lord is my Shepherd

You put me together in my mother's womb

and so on....

There were also less confortable but remembered ones:

My God my God why have you forsaken me?

May the wicked perish and of course the one about dashing the babies' heads against the rocks.

Some psalms we remembered had neither negative nor positive emotions attached. These usually contained some sort of memorable image like 'the oil running down Aaron's beard'.

Then we made up some music to go with psalms both those remembered and read from print.

We also did some RB with the gospel, remembering Jesus saying 'if you have ears'. How many ears can you remember from the gospel? Don't forget the one that gets cut off in the Garden of Gethsemane. We did some 'frozen poses' to remember these stories: think of a story and then freeze yourself in a position that reminds you of part of the story - sorry no photos of this!

Psalm language

Although I have used the psalms for a great part of my life they are not the first thing I usually turn to in worship. Mostly because I often struggle to connect with the language. Images of God are limited in most translations: it's all Lord, Lord, and other images seem ancient and far away.

Psalm 127 is part of the lectionary today. It's short and whilst the translation I'm readying has Lord, Lord it's also about building and protecting cities. The second part has the image of children being like 'the arrows in a soldier's hand'. In Helmand today arrows are not much prized I suspect. How to pray with women and men serving out there when we all yearn for peace and wonder at the right action to take to get there? So my rewrite of Pslam 127 in a week that saw deaths of British service personnel pass that of any year since the Falklands. Maybe these words will not sit comfortably with us and maybe that's the thing about Pslams. Too much emphasis on the comfy ones and not enough attention to the uncomfy ones.

Revised Psalm 127

If God does not build the peace
the work of the peacemakers in useless;
if the Holy One does not protect the city
then what hope for those who stand guard.
Your work is useless;
the early mornings and late nights wasted.
Whilst your are sleeping
God nourishes you with love.

We consider children to be God’s gift:
a real blessing.
The offspring a young parent has
are like ammunition to a soldier.
A soldier feels satisfied with a full clip;
such a one feels ready
when face to face with the enemy
or surveying the ground for an IED.

copyright Janet Lees: 08.11.2009

Sundays God

It's Sunday. As a child I would go to church with enthusiasm every week. It was not much different to the one I go to now except that it was in a village (this one is in a town). Most of the people there were a lot older than me and there were few youths. Now at 50 years old I'm still one of the youngest present. There are even fewer youths.
We read Pslam 111. It's not one with which I am very familiar (i.e. I don't have a remembered version). It merges with all my remembered Psalms. God makes stuff and keeps promises and can generally be relied on. From time to time things go a bit ary and babies heads get bashed against rocks. Now and again we can lament a bit or recall some particular Godly stuff. But remembered Psalms are mostly comfortably predictable: God is in keeping the laws of nature (as Bob reminded us) and we can marvel at that. So Sundays God is worth remembering any day of the week.

The God I meet on Sundays
created an ordered universe so huge and mysterious I'm still wondering about it all.
The God Imeet on Sundays
keeps age-old promises to a huddle of ageing ones and a handful of others.
The God I meet on Sundays
still causes me to lift my voice in response to all the God-stuff.
Upright or not, Sundays God, affirms me everyday.