Psalms in the Silence

Be Still and Know that I am God

Psalm 46:10 

We had such a beautiful "Great Silence" retreat this spring.  Every retreatant was able to come.  The weather was perfect, sunny and not too hot.  The food prepared by our very own contemplative chef was tasty and delicious ... it really makes a difference!  Our theme was the Psalms and we found lovely creative ways to enter into them as we followed Walter Brueggemann's Spirituality of the Psalms  to structure our retreat.   

The bible is the grand story of God and God’s people as they journey together.   In the journey there are basically 2 movements within 3 spaces.  We see movements toward God and movements away from God, dancing through life with one another, we move.  

Brueggemann has a wonderful way of inviting us to see those 3 dancing spaces of life reflected in the Psalms:  Orientation, Disorientation, and (often surprising) Reorientation.  As we moved through our retreat, we practiced this rhythm … practicing the rhythm invites us and increases our trust that after every bout of disorientation there will be a reorientation to invite us deeper in our relationship with God, often with a delightful surprise.

We worked with images as we created Psalm Collages and some of us wrote our own Psalms from scratch.  We sat by the lake and we hiked through the woods as, gazing upon beauty, the Psalms came alive for us.  

Perhaps you might like to try your hand at writing a Creation Psalm:

Take your Journal and go on a walk in the presence of God in Creation.   If you can't take a walk, gaze upon a photo of nature that draws you in and allows you to walk in your imagination.  As you walk, breathe in the beauty and wonder you find.   Now … be still in the Presence.   As you become attuned to the nature that envelops you, take time to write down what you notice.  Use these prompts to start writing.  Let the words flow without thinking about them now. 

• I see … I hear … I smell … I feel the texture of … 
• How is God present in Creation?  
• How does God make God-Self known to you here? 
• What does the beauty of your surroundings remind you of … any memories emerge? 
• I want to ask God our Creator this about what I have experienced in nature …  
• I want to tell God our Creator that creation is, for me … or Creation feels like …  
• When I consider the presence of God in creation, I sense a desire to say the following phrase over and over again …
  

Consider the impact and effect nature has had on you today and look over what you have written, circling words and/or phrases that you are drawn to.  You are ready to write a psalm employing the Hebrew literary device used by many of the psalmists, known as parallelism, in which the second line repeats the structure of the first line, such as in the psalm verses above.  Note the way the author has used parallelism … Try these exercises:

• Lists:  Make a short list of things you found on your walk that you are thankful to God for.  Take your list and express your thankfulness to God. (Ps 83:13-15) 
• Restatement:  The first line is not repeated, it is restated.  Write a statement to God about what you found on your walk in nature and then restate it.  (Ps 148:1) 
• Questions: Write several lines, each beginning with “Why …”  (Ps 74:1) 
• Repetition:  Take a word or phrase and alternate with new lines.  (Ps 118) 
• Addressing the Divine:  Consider new names and images of God evoked by your walk

My personal favorite resource for Psalm writing is Writing the Sacred: A Psalm-Inspired Path to Appreciating and Writing Sacred Poetry by Ray McGinnis 

Enjoy ... Psalms in the Silence!