The Diocesan Dialogue
Current Issue
May 2008
Praying the Psalms
Reflections of the clergy are always appreciated by the Dialogue.
The Rev. Catherine Gregg, Rector of Grace Church in St. George has
conducted instruction and workshops on praying the Psalms. As we look
ahead to the season of Pentecost, perhaps the Psalms will offer added
meaning to our journey.
The 150 Psalms are a vital part of our worship service and our life
of prayer.
The Psalms give us a language for prayer that helps us to communicate
with God in all of the joys and the miseries of life. This integration
and congruence is both emotionally healthy and biblically holy.
They
teach us that we are not to practice a spirituality of pretense before
God. In fact, the Psalms defeat our tendency to try to be holy without
being human first!
The Psalms presuppose that human life is made up
of different seasons. Walter Bruggemean, the eminent Hebrew Scripture
scholar, has given classification to these seasons as those of orientation,
disorientation, and reorientation. Orientation may be likened to one
sailing on the sea on a bright, sunny day. The sea is a bit restless,
there are a few choppy waves which vary the experience, and may be
trying— but life is basically okay in times of orientation. But
there are times in all of our lives when crisis comes crashing in:
lifechanging, life-threatening crisis, when the boat capsizes. This
is disorientation, when salvation, in all its forms, is needed. When,
and if we survive, and find a "new normal" in life, we
are experiencing a new reorientation. The psalms,
reflecting these different seasons, assure us that God is at work in
ALL the circumstances of our life—not just the "happy" ones that
we usually sing about at church!
For many of us, praying the psalms of disorientation
may feel uncomfortable or even heretical. What do we do with those
verses that talk about being angry at God, or vengeful towards others?
How can we be faithful Christians and "pray" our sense
of God abandoning us when we most need God?
The very existence of these
psalms of lament (deep distress) and imprecation ("God —get
'em!") assure us that these feelings are part of the experience of
being human, and are therefore appropriate to our conversation with
God. By praying our distress, we are actually making a bold statement
of faith that we believe that God exists, and that God is the One to
whom we should direct the deepest expressions of our hearts. By crying
out to God, we are trusting that God will sort out with us our angst
and bring healing grace to our souls. Because we have faith, nor superstition,
we can know that God will not harm somebody when we cry out for vengeance
on them, nor cut us off when we display our fears of being abandoned.
By addressing God directly, we are acknowledging that our Creator is
the One who is the final referent for all of life. In short—the
buck really does stop with God!
Each of the 150 psalms (found in the
Bible and in the BCP) reflects a particular season, and are meant to
be used by those who share that season. To use the psalms as our own
prayers, we need to be able to assess honestly where we are, and know
the psalms well enough to find the ones that correspond to our current
experience, so that they may give voice to that which we may otherwise
not know how to express to God.
With the newly prescribed use of the
RCL, we will be including a greater selection of the psalms in our
weekly Eucharistic readings. As we pay attention to the wide range
of emotions that are reflected in these psalms, I pray that we may
each find words and voice to express our own, and the world's,
pain and distress, as well as hope. In so doing, our experience of
faith will be deepened and strengthened.
Rev. Catherine Gregg, D.Min.,
Rector, Grace Episcopal Church, St. George, UT.
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