So, I am jumping around a little today, but I know you don’t mind and wouldn’t even be aware if I hadn’t told you. Yet , I did and I am. In Bread and Wine there is a short essay by Kathleen Norris that really piqued my interest today. She tells of an experience as artist in residence at a parochial school. She would read Psalms as the children listened. Then, she asked them in their adolescent honest to write Psalms of their own. One young boy who confessed to being upset when his dad was angry with him and taking it out on his siblings wrote the following, “ Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, I shouldn’t have done all that.” This captures the Psalms, penitential, reflective, and honest. Maybe over these last few weeks you have set down in you house (messy or not) and thought, “ I shouldn’t have done (said) all that.” Good news for the amateur Psalmist and us, God hears and God forgives. It reminds me of a line from an Amy Grant song, “the honest cries of breaking hearts are better than a Hallelujah sometime.”
This brings me to a challenge. If you’re reading this, I challenge you to write a Psalm. It can be any category, praise, imprecation (mad), confession, wherever you are at in this journey. This can be just for you, or you can share it in the comment section below or via email at jdunnok@gmail.com