Lent, Week Five

During this season of Lent, I'm writing reflections based on the psalm assigned for each Sunday by the Revised  Common Lectionary (look it up, if you want), and sharing those with the congregation I serve when we gather for Evening Prayer on Wednesday evenings. This reflection is from April 9, week five, and is based on Psalm 130

You ever sing the blues?

      ever play the blues?

Once I found myself on stage

            playing the blues

      12 bars later, I was lost

            transported beyond myself by

                  musical catharsis

***

the blues

            down in the dumps

            feeling low down

            depression

the blues

      a state or spell of low spirits

      down-hearted-ness

***

out of the depths

      I cry to you, O Lord

down in the dumps, I cry

      feeling low down, I cry

      singing the blues, I cry to you, O Lord

out of my depths I cry

      and in my depths, I know you hear

***

speaking, or singing, my blues

            giving voice to my cries

      allows space for my own identity

            to be transported beyond the blues

      allows space within my self

            within my very self

for my self to recognize that God is present

      for me to enter into divine embrace

***

though speaking, sharing, singing

            does not magically, or immediately

                  or necessarily

      automatically change my reality

            still I cry out

                  trusting that God,

                        who has passed through through the gates of Hell

                              about as low down as you can get

                  trusting that God, in our crying out

                        in our blues lamentation

            trusting that in our crying out to our God

                  we are ourselves invited into

                        the presence of the divine

and we allow ourselves

            to expect to be

      transported beyond the blues, beyond

            our lamentation, beyond

            our selves

and into the promise of

      the presence of

            divine redemption

Lent, Week Four

During this season of Lent, I'm writing reflections based on the psalm assigned for each Sunday by the Revised Common Lectionary (look it up, if you want), and sharing those with the congregation I serve when we gather for Evening Prayer on Wednesday evenings. This reflection is from April 2, week four, and is based on Psalm 23

we’re so far removed,

            most of us,

      from sheep and shepherds

            the Lord may as well be my

                  blacksmith, or my

                  tentmaker

people still do those things

      but they’re not so ubiquitous as they once were

tentmakers & blacksmiths & shepherds are,

      you may be aware

            no longer part of everyday life

*** 

but though we may not know shepherds

            or tentmakers or blacksmiths

      we all know shadows

      we all know death

what scares you?

            spiders, or snakes

            school …

                  or graduation?

      valleys

what keeps you up at night?

            taxes? rent? grades?

      shadow

what twists you up deep inside?

            divorce? unemployment?

                  life-sapping illness?

                        (your own, or a beloved’s)

      death

*** 

it may not be today,   

      but we live in the promise

            that we’re not so far removed

                  from the shepherd

            that we’re not so far removed

                  from the table prepared for us

      we live with hope in the promise

      that our soul will be granted

            respite

            rest

            repose

            refreshment

            renewal

     

      that we will be led beside

                  and are not so far removed from

            still water

      that we are led beside

                  and not so far removed from

            the living water springing up to eternal life

Thanks be to God.