Monday, March 1, 2010

Daily Lenten Meditation - March 2, 2010

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Daily Lenten Meditation
By Ember Baker

Psalm 62
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from Yahweh comes my salvation. God alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken. How long will you assail a person, will you batter your victim, all of you, as you would a leaning wall, a tottering fence? Their only plan is to bring down a person of prominence. They take pleasure in falsehood; they bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse. (Selah) For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from God, who alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my deliverance and my honor; my mighty rock, my refuge is in God. Trust in God at all times, O people; pour out your heart before God; God is a refuge for us. (Selah) Those of low estate are but a breath, those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath. Put no confidence in extortion, and set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, do not set your heart on them. Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God, and steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord. For you repay to all according to their work. NRSV
Many modern Christians may find the Psalms to be disturbingly un-Christian, violent, and raw. The psalmist has no trouble believing that always and everywhere, God is on his side. He doesn't hesitate to be completely honest with God about his own emotions or perceptions. He often asks that God wound or even kill his enemies. The psalms explore all the extremes of the human emotional spectrum from exhalation to doubt, fear, love, hope, and despair.
In Roman Catholic Monasteries around the world, monks and nuns recite or sing the Psalms daily. The Psalms are the core of their daily office, the series of communal prayers they say several times a day. The reason for this is that, as a whole, the Psalms, more than any other single source, express the entirety of the human condition -- the good, the bad, and the ugly as well as everything in between. By praying the psalms daily, they are lifting all of humanity, the entire human condition up before God continuously for blessing, healing and redemption. It is the point at which the lives of monastics, which are largely separate from mainstream culture, intersect and minister to all of humanity through prayer.
Modern Christians, particularly Protestants, tend to ignore the Psalms, except when they are turned into a catchy song. But they are a rich source for spiritual growth and wisdom when we look at them properly, and use them in our prayer lives. They show us, if nothing else, that no matter where we may be at a given moment, or what we may be feeling, we can bring it before God safely. That God can take whatever we can dish out, as it were, and that God wants the reality and the grittiness of relationship with us, not just pious lip-service and devotionals.
There are many ways to pray the Psalms. One can simply recite them with intentionality as the monastics do, using them to lift up the emotions they express, and the realities about the human condition they depict before a loving and forgiving God. We may choose to read them with the four step process known as Lectio Divina which has been taught in numerous classes over the years at MCCGSL. We can use them in a process of self-examination, where we look into our own hearts for where we can relate to or find ourselves resisting what is being said by the psalmist. We then can form a verbal prayer asking for God's guidance, healing, or transformational power to enter into us or the circumstances around us. We can choose a short phrase from the psalm and use it as a mantra in meditation. In this particular Psalm, for example, the phrase "For God alone, my soul waits in silence," Might be shortened to "My soul waits," and used as a mantra. Using a short mantra like this, or even one of the names of God, we can take the emotions and circumstances expressed in a psalm along with our feelings about what it says and any parallels we may see in the world of today, and simply be present to all of it and to God as we repeat silently in our minds, "My soul waits . . . My soul waits . . . My soul waits."






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