Psalm 77 is supremely a psalm of memory: the psalmist in their present distress remembers the great deeds of God in the past as well as their own times of personal deliverance and is able to take comfort and hope for the future. I find verses 5 and 6 especially moving:
I have considered the days of old: and the years that are past.
I call to remembrance my song: and in the night I commune with mine own heart, and search out my spirits.
So, as you will see in my response, this psalm has been a prompt to me to look back on my life and trace the way God has held me through dark times and never let me go.
These poems will all be gathered together and published on January 30th under the title David’s Crown. There is already an Amazon page for the book if you wish to pre-order it Here
As always you can hear me read the poem by clicking on the play button or the title.
If you would like to encourage and support this blog, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
Psalm 76 is a psalm of hope for the peace makers, for it says that the coming of the Lord will bring an end to human violence and reduce our weapons to nothing: There brake he the arrows of the bow: the shield, the sword, and the battle. and again: The fierceness of man shall turn to thy praise: and the fierceness of them shalt thou refrain. As you will see these are themes I have also drawn out in my poetic response to this psalm.
These poems will all be gathered together and published on January 30th under the title David’s Crown. There is already an Amazon page for the book if you wish to pre-order it Here
As always you can hear me read the poem by clicking on the play button or the title.
If you would like to encourage and support this blog, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
Psalm 72 is one of the great prophetic psalms about the coming of the Messiah as a king who will bring justice and peace. A Prophecy whose fulfilment begins at Christmas but which will only be fulfilled completely on the last day. The lovely verse about his gentle coming in the nativity: ‘He shall come down like the rain into a fleece of wool: even as the drops that water the earth,’ found its way into the beautiful mediaeval carol ‘I Sing Of A Maiden:
He came all so still Where his mother was As dew in April That falleth on the grass.
My poetic response to the psalm echoes the carol but also picks up on the great Hope for the coming of Christ’s peaceable kingdom which runs through the whole psalm.
As always you can hear me read the psalm by clicking on the play button or the title.
These poems will all be gathered together and published on January 30th under the title David’s Crown. There is already an Amazon page for the book if you wish to pre-order it Here
If you would like to encourage and support this blog, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
HASTE thee, O God, to deliver me: make haste to help me, O Lord.
Sometimes its just a phrase or an image in a psalm that triggers my poem in response, and in this case it was just the phrase ‘seek after my soul’ in the first half of the second verse: ‘Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul’. It seems to me that we, in the developed west live in a culture that ministers every comfort to the body but persistently and insidiously seeks to mock, belittle and choke off the life of the soul, and so my poem addresses that issue and asks God for help in defending that imperilled spiritual life.
As I am posting this in the Christmas season I was delighted to find that the Mainz illuminated psalter had illustrated this psalm with the Christmas angels telling the shepherds that God had indeed come down to answer their prayers
As always you can hear me read the poem by clicking on the play button or the title.
These poems will all be gathered together and published on January 30th under the title David’s Crown. I am just working on the proofs now and there is already an amazon page for the book if you wish to pre-order it Here
Pour out for me the life-blood of your heart For my own life is ebbing to a close. Make haste to help me, come and heal my hurt,
Come down O lord and rescue me from those Who seek to sow confusion in my soul, From those who patronise the faithful, those
Who humour our religion, but whose whole Approach to life dismisses faith and prayer. Yet you continue holy. You will heal
The deep wounds in our culture: its despair, Its idols and addictions, its rejection Of your gospel. In your mercy spare
This weary world, descending to dejection, And come as our redeemer, quickly come And raise us with you in your resurrection.
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For January 4th in my Anthology from Canterbury Press, Waiting on the Word, I have chosen to read a passage from A Hymn before Sunrise in the vale of Chamouni by ST Coleridge.
You can hear me read this poem by clicking on the title or the play button. The image above was created by Linda Richardson for her book of responses to Waiting on the Word, she writes:
Anyone who has ever had a “glance” of God wants to share the experience. It is like running home to show your family the beautiful butterfly you have captured in your cupped hands but when you get there it has escaped and all you have are impressions and words. In the gospel of John we hear Andrew’s response after he meets Jesus: “The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus.”
Words and images have power to point to an experience but they aren’t the experience itself. What we really want to do is bring people to experience what we have experienced, to bring them to Jesus like Andrew brought his brother, (to bring them to the Holy Mountain). In my little painting, the mountain sits above the words, the words point to the mountain. God’s promise is that if we seek, we will find. Talking about God is good but if we don’t also open ourselves to be transformed by the experience of God, (Rise, O ever rise..), we remain in doctrine and dogma which, although essential, only has the power to point.
You can find the words, and a short reflective essay on this poem in Waiting on the Word, which is now also available on Kindle
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?—
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle’s nest!
Ye eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the element!
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast—
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me—Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
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I particularly love psalm 65, not least for its long and rich associations with Harvest festivals and the beautiful anthem setting of its words: a distillation of rich and abundant goodness:
thou that makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to praise thee.
Thou visitest the earth, and blessest it: thou makest it very plenteous.
The river of God is full of water: thou preparest their corn, for so thou providest for the earth.
Thou waterest her furrows, thou sendest rain into the little valleys thereof: thou makest it soft with the drops of rain, and blessest the increase of it.
Thou crownest the year with thy goodness: and thy clouds drop fatness.
In making my own response to this harvest psalm I wanted to bring in the distinctly Christian sense that the valleys’ standing so thick with corn that they shall laugh and sing’ in this psalm, are a symbolic anticipation of the resurrection, since Christ compares his death and resurrection to the sowing and germination of a single grain, and Paul describes his resurrection as ‘ the first-fruits of those who sleep’
As always you can hear me read the psalm by clicking on the play button or the title.
These poems will all be gathered together and published on January 30th under the title David’s Crown. I am just working on the proofs now and there is already an Amazon page for the book if you wish to pre-order it Here
Lord in your shining wisdom, make us wise. Morning and evening turn to you in praise, Your glory stands where steadfast mountains rise.
Your presence girds us like the sea. The days Arrive as gifts from you. The starlit nights All manifest the beauty of your ways.
Your love touches the earth itself, alights Not just in rain and growth and plenteousness Or in the crowning goodness, which delights
The eye at harvest, but you visit us And bless us far more deeply in your Son Who came, a grain of wheat, sown deep for us
Into the furrowed grave, planted alone That we might die and rise again with him In the rich valley of the resurrection.
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Whilst still in the midst of our Christmas sequence of postsI am nevertheless resuming the thread of my sequence of poems responding to the psalms – David’s Crown. We have come now to Psalm 64, which is a simple plea for protection:
HEAR my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
Hide me from the gathering together of the froward: and from the insurrection of wicked doers;
One of its underlying metaphors is that of archery; in verses 43 and 4 the psalmist feels as though he is the target of hidden archers – and we all know that feeling, to be suddenly struck and hurt from an unexpected quarter whether is is a physical mishap or an emotional ambush,- we cry out for help as the psalmist does and look for some way of shielding ourselves. But then the metaphor turns, and in verse 7 the psalmist asks for God himself to be the archer, this time shooting in our defence. All this has entered into my own contemporary poetic response tooth’s psalm.
As always you can hear me read the psalm by clicking on the play button or the title.
These poems will all be gathered together and published on January 30th under the title David’s Crown. I am just working on the proofs now and there is already an amazon page for the book if you wish to pre-order it Here
Our hearts desire our risen lord and king,
And in our exile here we call to him:
‘Preserve us, hide us, hold us in the ring
Of your protecting love. For there are grim
Assailants round us, setting secret snares.
And when our lights are low, our vision dim
We tumble into trouble unawares
As this world’s traps and trappings snag our feet.
We stumble, all encumbered by its cares,
And soon the arrows pierce us; we retreat
From our first faith, we veer and compromise,
Despair of progress and accept defeat.
Hear us and rescue us. O Lord arise,
Shoot back for us with flaming darts of truth
And in your shining wisdom, make us wise’.
If you would like to encourage and support this blog, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
After the pain and struggle of some of the preceding psalms, psalm 63 gives us at last a glimpse of healing and fulfilment. Its starts with spiritual thirst and longing:
O GOD, thou art my God: early will I seek thee.
My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh also longeth after thee: in a barren and dry land where no water is.
Then the longing itself leads to a foretaste of fulfilment and a moment of true spiritual blessing:
For thy loving-kindness is better than the life itself: my lips shall praise thee.
As long as I live will I magnify thee on this manner: and lift up my hands in thy Name.
My soul shall be satisfied, even as it were with marrow and fatness: when my mouth praiseth thee with joyful lips.
My poem in response echoes this and is at once a lament for the transience in the midst of which we live, and also a glimpse of the true and eternal life into which we are called.
As always you can hear me read the psalm by clicking on the play button or the title.
These poems will all be gathered together and published on January 30th under the title David’s Crown. I am just working on the proofs now and there is already an amazon page for the book if you wish to pre-order it Here
For love lifts time into eternity,
Kisses each passing moment into life,
Gives us a glimpse of your unfading glory.
We fall away like every falling leaf
But even as we fall we yearn to you.
Our prayers are passing and our blessings brief,
Yet each one reaches deeply into you
For you yourself are reaching into us
To breathe your life in us and make us new:
The barren wasteland is made glorious
With blossoms, breathing an eternal spring
And even as this first world fades from us,
We step into the true world and we sing
A joyful song, for there at last we see
Our heart’s desire: our risen lord and king.
If you would like to encourage and support this blog, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
Psalm 62 seems a particularly appropriate psalm to read and pray through during Advent, a season of waiting, of prayerful anticipation, for the psalm opens:
MY SOUL truly waiteth still upon God: for of him cometh my salvation.
He verily is my strength and my salvation: he is my defence, so that I shall not greatly fall.
And so in my poem, which will appear in my next book David’s Crown, I allude obliquely to the title of my current Advent Book Waiting On The Word:
Draw back the veil until my spirit sings
And teach me how to wait upon your word,
Content beneath the shadow of your wings,
Gathering strength in you
The psalm makes a clear and simple contrast between the certain strength we find in God, and the wavering uncertainties of the world, which is compared to a tottering wall and a broken hedge. This is true as far as it goes but of course the Christian praying this psalm brings another insight to bear: this world for all its brokenness and vanity is still the world that God so loved that he gave his only son to save it. So we must learn to love it with him, and long for its redemption, even as we try not to be snared in the traps and trappings of its present fallen state, and that is the balance and paradox I seek to explore in my poetic response.
As always you can hear me read the psalm by clicking on the play button or the title.
These poems will all be gathered together and published on January 30th under the title David’s Crown. I am just working on the proofs now and there is already an amazon page for the book if you wish to pre-order it Here
Draw back the veil until my spirit sings
And teach me how to wait upon your word,
Content beneath the shadow of your wings,
Gathering strength in you, until I’ve heard
The word that sends me back into the world
With all its tottering walls, with all its scarred
And ruined landscapes, raggèd flags unfurled,
Its broken promises, and compromises,
The world you love and suffer for, the world
You lift to God, the world that still devises
Its own destruction, in its vanity
Selling its living soul for passing prizes.
I am to love this world as tenderly
As you do, to risk everything for love,
For love lifts time into eternity.
If you would like to encourage and support this blog, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
Psalm 60 is a prayer in time of crisis and it seems to speak very directly into our own situation. We too can say to God: Thou hast shewed thy people heavy things: thou hast given us a drink of deadly wine. And this psalm licences us to speak to God very directly about our troubles and to expect and rely on his help. The other striking thing about this psalm is the way it names particular places:
I will rejoice, and divide Sichem: and mete out the valley of Succoth.
Gilead is mine, and Manasses is mine: Ephraim also is the strength of my head; Judah is my law-giver;
Moab is my wash-pot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe: Philistia, be thou glad of me.
I have reflected that a little in my response to the psalm.
As always you can hear me read the psalm by clicking on the play button or the title.
These poems will all be gathered together and published on January 30th under the title David’s Crown. I am just working on the proofs now and there is already an amazon page for the book if you wish to pre-order it Here
From my false self, O Lord, deliver me.
Where I am scattered gather me again,
Turn me to you once more, and turn to me,
For we have all been shaken. Soothe our pain
And heal the deep divisions, cruelly shown
By this sharp plague. All other help is vain,
So be our help. Our future’s all unknown
To us. We trust that you will meet us there,
Since all of time is in your hands, all known
And carried in your providence. Our prayer
Rises from every land, from Gillead
From Succoth, from New York, from places where
Your other names are spoken. All the sad
And sighing tribes of earth hold up their hands
Hear us, we cry, and once more, make us glad.
If you would like to encourage and support this blog, you might like, on occasion, (not every time of course!) to pop in and buy me a cup of coffee. Clicking on this banner will take you to a page where you can do so, if you wish. But please do not feel any obligation!
Psalm 77 is supremely a psalm of memory: the psalmist in their present distress remembers the great deeds of God in the past as well as their own times of personal deliverance and is able to take comfort and hope for the future. I find verses 5 and 6 especially moving:
