Psalm

Last month, both the scientifically minded and the scientifically challenged paused to contemplate the far reaches of the cosmos.

I'm a bit of a congregational song nerd, and the church music folks I know talk about things like "sound pools" and "heart songs."

Sound pools are what Mennonite musician, teacher, and hymnologist Mary Oyer and her students (who became my teachers) describe as the body of music that a culture or community shares.

I'm a bit of a congregational song nerd, and the church music folks I know talk about things like "sound pools" and "heart songs."

Sound pools are what Mennonite musician, teacher, and hymnologist Mary Oyer and her students (who became my teachers) describe as the body of music that a culture or community shares.

The lectionary readings for Ash Wednesday are the same each year. So it almost doesn’t feel like Ash Wednesday if I go through the day without hearing Psalm 51: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.”

On a shelf in our church library you can find a “Reading Guide” made by a fourth grader. It lists the types of books appropriate for different age groups and advises: “Remember--Kids (8-12) when you start the Bible, go at your own pace. It's a long book!”

America is living stormy Monday while the pulpit is preaching happy Sunday. Can we recover a blues sensibility?

The decline of mainline Protestantism is clear. What's less clear is what the church should do about it.

The decline of mainline Protestantism is clear. What's less clear is what the church should do about it.

Scripture doesn't just shape the life of the community of faith. It also has a powerful effect on the lives of those who maintain distance from traditional religion, even those who explicitly deny religious faith.

As a second-generation Korean American, it is hard to identify stories from my past that can serve as reservoirs of understanding for my life now. “In you our ancestors trusted,” I could proclaim from those stories, “and you delivered them.”

As a second-generation Korean American, it is hard to identify stories from my past that can serve as reservoirs of understanding for my life now. “In you our ancestors trusted,” I could proclaim from those stories, “and you delivered them.”

It feels to me like evil is hovering over the prison in the form of a government ready to kill a woman who prayed with me when my father was dying of cancer. There isn't a thing I can do about it except pray this psalm and damn if we can't get it right. 

The psalmist is not alone in claiming that humans are only “a little lower than God.” Can it be any wonder, then, that our faith leaves a great deal of room to disagree about our power in creation?

When I was baptized at 12, I refused what Baptists call “the right hand of fellowship.” I wanted the water but not the fellowship.

Christians didn’t baptize Aldo Leopold’s land ethic after the fact. They got there years before his work.

James reminds us of the duplicity of language, like a matchstick dropped by singed fingers that leaves behind charred acres. The deception of language is that we believe it is innocent.

James reminds us of the duplicity of language, like a matchstick dropped by singed fingers that leaves behind charred acres. The deception of language is that we believe it is innocent.

It’s no secret that I love Ordinary Time.

As time goes on, I find that the seasons I love the most in the liturgical year aren’t the high holy feasts, but the ordinary ones.

In his years as a pastor my husband read the 23rd Psalm at the bedsides of quite a few people who were dying. It was the most frequently requested passage among those who were facing their own going and still able to choose. When I began to volunteer for hospice, I found, as he had, that even for people who had wandered far from church, even for the skeptical and the uncertain, even for those who were unused to prayer and didn't want to be prayed over, the 23rd Psalm provided a place of return that was beautiful, familiar, inviting, and reassuring.

Most nights, my bedtime prayer with our two oldest boys begins like this:

Be still and know that I am God.