• What is your metaphor for God? Do you think of God as a father? a friend? a rock? the color purple? What image makes sense for you when you think about God?
• Where does your soul find rest?
• Where does God lead you?
• What are you afraid of?
• How does God comfort and protect you?
• How does God bless you?

Then give participants a paper with lots of space between the following lines:
The Lord is [blank]
I shall not want.
God makes me [blank]
God leads me [blank]
God restores my soul.
God leads me in paths of righteousness for God’s name’s sake.
Yea though I walk [blank]
I will fear no evil, for You are with me.
Your [blank] comfort me.
You [blank]
You anoint my head with oil.
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Each blank corresponds with an answer to the question prompts in order. Give participants some time to craft their psalm. Invite people to share aloud. If you try this with your faith community, let us know how it turns out!

This has gotten me thinking about the nature of the texts contained in the Bible. The question of whether the Bible is the “inerrant Word of God” is such a hangup issue for so many churches – it’s used as a litmus test to determine whether a believer is a “true Christian” or whether a teacher is a “false Prophet.” When the final version of the Torah was put together (probably shortly after the Babylonian Exile), did the redactors suspect it’d be used as scripture? Well, yeah, they probably did. When Paul wrote his letter to Philemon, did he suspect that it’d be read in churches thousands of years later and declared “the Word of the Lord, thanks be to God?” No, he probably didn’t.

In Jewish copies of the Bible, the books are clearly separated between Scripture (Torah), Prophecy (Nevi’im), and Writings (Ketuvim). In Christianity, the lines between the three are much, much more ambiguous, whether we’re talking about the Psalms or the writings of Paul. Since I’m much more familiar with the Psalms, I’ll focus on them.

1) Prayer. The Psalms were written by people, and are a representative of the ways humanity prays. The Psalms were written over a period of centuries, and some of them were written by poets, others by liturgists, others by members of the royal court, and others adopted from the hymns of other cultures. The cover the gamut of human emotion, including joy, hope, despair, anger, loneliness, indignation, thanksgiving, love, and patriotism, and in so doing they provide models for our own prayers.

In Jewish practice, Psalms are not chanted with the same trope as scripture; rather, they are changed like prayers. Similarly, monastic practice constructs round-the-clock services of psalm reading and psalm singing in order to follow Paul’s exhortation to “pray without ceasing.”

2) Scripture. Many people, of course, believe that the 150 canonical Psalms were divinely inspired, and therefor are not only a record of humanity speaking of God but also of God speaking to humanity. Personally, I do believe that the Psalms are divinely inspired, but I don’t give God credit for the word-for-word version of the Psalms we have in our Bibles today. Is God responsible for splitting Psalm 9/10 in half? How about Psalm 42/43? And why did God choose to omit Psalm “151,” a Davidic psalm which is contained in the Septuagint but not in the Masoretic text, while including Psalm 104, which is suspiciously similar to the Great Hymn to Aten, an Egyptian prayer?

Then there’s the fact that the Psalms contain so much brokenness, pain, and violent imagery. Although I can fully support the idea that people have these feelings and deal with them by bringing them to God, it’s harder for me to imagine that God endorses smashing the heads of our enemy’s children on rocks (Psalm 137). I do believe that the Psalms are scripture, but they were inspired by God, not written by God.

3) Prophecy. And, finally, lots of people treat the Psalms as prophetic books, interpreting many of the royal Psalms to be about Jesus rather than the Davidic monarchy. (People who subscribe to this idea use the word “prophecy” to mean “predicting the future” rather than “speaking God’s justice to those in power,” i.e. Malachi rather than Nathan.)¬† Although I do believe that the Hebrew Bible points towards the messianic truth revealed in Jesus, I don’t think it’s reasonable to ignore what the Biblical writers were actually writing about him, i.e. I think Isaiah really was talking about Cyrus the Great of Persia, that Psalm 45 really is about a royal wedding, and that Ezekiel really is talking about the end of the the Babylonian Exile.

Now it’s worth noting that the canonical Book of Psalms does have a strong apocalyptic bent to it, promising a messianic era when all will be made right in the world. This isn’t directly contained in the texts, however, but rather in the order in which the Psalms are arranged:

• Psalm 1: The Righteous flourish and the Wicked are punished. Good deeds are rewarded by God. This Psalm expresses how the world ought to be in the eyes of the person who compiled the Book of Psalms.

• Psalm 2: The King is anointed by God and is told to be wise and to serve God. This admonishment can be extended to everyone who reads the Psalms.

• Psalm 3: The Psalmist laments about persecution and general troubles. The person who compiled the Book of Psalms uses this to show us that the vision of the world presented in Psalm 1 is not the situation in the actual world – in the real world, the Wicked are often victorious and the Righteous are often sick, broken, and persecuted.

• Psalms 4-144: These Psalms detail the range of human experience, as well as a history of God’s covenant with humanity.

• Psalms 145-150: The are joyous psalms of exuberant praise, claiming that the entire world, all humanity and all creation, is of one mind in the worship of God. The compiler of the Psalms put them at the end to demonstrate that this is how the world will be in the future, so we should have hope in our coming deliverance.

So whether or not the individual Psalms were meant to be prophetic, the canonical Psalter has a prophetic and apocalyptic message superimposed on them. The fact that this message is not original to the texts doesn’t, however, mean that it’s not a message worth paying attention to, just as the superscriptions to the psalms are worth reading even though they are later additions to the texts.

Which is these is the “correct” way to read the Psalms?¬† Or, for that matter, the Bible in general?¬† I don’t think that question has an answer, for abandoning any of these three modes or reading makes the Bible less rich.

If you’re podcast savvy, the XML feed is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/emergentpsalterpodcast/podcast.xml

If you want to to listen to it on iTunes: click here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=322056809

If you’d rather just download it, the link is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/epp089.mp3

If you want to stream it from the site, click the big gray button below.

In any case, this week we’re featuring Stephanie Spellers, author of Radical Welcome and pastor of the The Crossing, a very cool emergent community in Boston.  We talk about Psalm 24, the idea of welcome, and the difficulties of trying to have an open table.

If you’re podcast savvy, the XML feed is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/emergentpsalterpodcast/podcast.xml

If you want to to listen to it on iTunes: click here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=322056809

If you’d rather just download it, the link is here: http://www.isaaceverett.com/audio/epp2.mp3

If you want to stream it from the site, click the big gray button below.

The Gold Star, though, goes to Joe Lowery, who did get broadcast but is worth watching a second time:

Today I arrived in Baltimore for the CCT Annual Meeting, which includes a day in DC addressing domestic poverty (see the CCT Statement of Poverty that was passed by consensus last year) and discernment about how we can evangelize together. Yup, you heard that right!

This meeting also has personal meaning for me, because it was at last year’s gathering in Pasadena that I met the Rev. Dr. Peter Heltzel, who lives ten blocks from me in West Harlem, and at whose party in April I met my (now) husband, George! Goes to show you never can tell.

Come to think of it, I also met Samir Selmanovic at last year’s meeting, who has since moved to NYC, is in the process of starting Faith House, an interfaith community in Manhattan.

I am also excited that two other women from exciting NYC organizations are here this year: Lisa Sharon Harper from New York Faith & Justice and Onleilove Alston from the Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary.

Please read a little about this group on their website (www.christianchurchestogether.org) and keep us in your prayers this week.

Thanks and blessings, Bowie

Please keep this community in your prayers and consider making a cash donation. Transmission does not ask it’s members to pledge, but many of us give generously to Transmission and do other spiritual giving as part of our tithe or giving back to God.

Official Fire Update from The Simple Way in Philly, PA

This morning, a 7-alarm fire consumed an abandoned warehouse in our Kensington neighborhood in Philadelphia. The Simple Way Community Center at 3200 Potter Street was destroyed as well as at least eight of our neighbors’ homes. Over 100 people were evacuated from their homes, and 400 families are currently without power. Despite this developing tragedy, we are incredibly thankful to share that all of our community members and every one of our neighbors is safely out of harm’s way.

This fire will forever change the fabric of our community. Eight families are currently homeless, and in many cases have lost their vehicles as well as their homes. One of our neighbors, the Mahaias Family, lost their three cars as well as the equipment one family member uses for her massage therapy business. Teenager Brian Mahaias is devastated not because he has lost his belongings, but because he fears that this fire will force him to move away from this neighborhood that is his family as well as his home.

The Simple Way has lost a community center that was home to our Yes! And‚Ķ afterschool program, community arts center, and Cottage Printworks t-shirt micro-business as well as to two of our community members. Community members Shane Claiborne and Jesce Walz have lost all of their belongings, Yes!And‚Ķ’s after school studio and library were ruined, and community member Justin Donner’s Cottage Printworks equipment and t-shirts were destroyed.

We are thankful that we are able to help each other during this time of need, and we will continue to keep your informed about today’s events.

We have established funds to support the families who have lost their homes, the Yes! And… afterschool program, and the Simple Way community.

A fund to support the families has been established through a partner organization, EAPE. Tax-deductible donations can be made online here. Please make sure to put “Kensington Families Fund” in the memo section.

Donations to the Rebuilding Fund can be made via PayPal to contribute@awip.us.

-The Simple Way Community

On the Euphrates, down by the river of Babylon,
they sat down and wept, and wept for you, Zion.

Held captive during Nebuchadnezzar’s reign,
they wrote scripture in the world’s largest city.

But even the most powerful human in the world
did a small good deed for the woman he loved.

As the story goes, Nebuchadnezzar, for his wife,
planted a World Wonder: hanging roof gardens.

I hear they’re thinking of green roofs for NYC;
what a great idea, I say, growing things here.

Imagine flying over that in a plane, a sea of green:
flowers, moss, vine, trees, birds, butterflies, bees.

Fruits of the earth to eat, natural cool and warm,
cleaner air and playgrounds for God’s creatures.

We best never forget the history that happened
nor the dreams that inspire human imagination.

* Read about the Green Roof movement

* Check out the Gaia Institute NY

“The Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the walls of Babylon (near present-day Baghdad in Iraq) were considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. ”
- Read more about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

* Please say a special prayer for my brother, Peter, Ike’s brother, Joel, and all the military personnel currently stationed in Iraq. Please pray for all Iraqis, that they may soon have peace in their lands.

As springtime blooms again, it’s time for us to start thinking about how we can renew the earth, as she renews us.

PS, while I have your attention, check out the Abstract of a paper my friend, Jackie, did at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in 2006.

Averting the Apocalypse: The Horrors of Global Warming and the Rhetorical Power of the End
Program Unit: John’s Apocalypse and Cultural Contexts Ancient and Modern
Jacqueline Hidalgo, Claremont Graduate University

In the Fall of 2005, Al Gore lectured in Los Angeles about global warming as part of the production of the new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. Gore compared some of the horrible plagues imagined in John’s Apocalypse to the horrific repercussions of global warming around the world, repercussions which Gore demonstrated in a complex narrative of photographs, tables, and film clips. Through a focus on Gore’s rhetoric of averting the global warming apocalypse, this paper explores the enduring prominence and power of the Apocalypse as it may be encountered throughout the US political imaginary. It is often recognized that Conservative Christians in the U.S.A. have used the horrific imagery of the Apocalypse in combination with the promise of an imminent End in order to shape politics, identities, and cultures. Many occupying different parts of the political Left have likewise turned to narratives of impending environmental doom and/or political totalitarianism. Given that such a variety of groups deploy these counterpoised apocalypticisms, what does this suggest about the social power of apocalyptic narratives over the social realities of different people? Successful deployment of the Apocalypse, and specifically of its horrors and end-time imagination, has been a significant source of social power for those who pursue it, and those who perceive themselves to be in situations of social distress often invoke apocalyptic rhetoric. Gore serves as an interesting example against this backdrop. Although he is part of the political mainstream, his speech comes at a time when many on the political Left feel disenfranchised. Is apocalyptic rhetoric most popular with groups who perceive themselves as disempowered or is it just such a central part of the US cultural imagination that it is hard to conceive of a historical trajectory outside of the Apocalypse?