March 2004: Psalms 2

Set up in the polygon with a café - food and drink served from the start not just the end.

Intro

Recap the Psalms 1 service and the homework sheet. introduce the Psalm Structure Twister idea. Explain that this service is our own presentation/creation of psalms.

Psalm structure twister

Psalms have an inner structure, marking the stages of a spiritual journey. Usually they start by looking at the world or the situation as it is, in all its alienation, injustice, distress. Then the psalmist turns to God, in anger, in a cry for help, in thanksgiving - and then things look different. There's a change of perspective. There's hope or strength or the promise of justice, and the thought of these leads to praise. There aren't many psalms that stay in one place, all praise or all lament.

Psalm Structure Twister has the elements of psalms marked out on a Twister board. The participants place hands and feet on the relevant spots to indicate the structure of a psalm. See images below.

The Twister positions were performed by Anna and Joshua.

Reading and prayer

Mark will then lead us in a psalm (maybe read by two halves of the room alternately) - Ps 40 I thnk? We’ll then play 40 by U2 and which is about waiting and there will be a prayer lighting three candles on each table.

Our own psalms

It’s then over to the Psalms – somehow we need to MC this? Maybe we need to get a list of who has psalms and get an order so they can run one after the other.

Psalm of boredom was Steve Collins' response.

Painting

What happened here differs from the order of service - see photos below. We made paintings responding to various psalms.

Closing prayer

Jonny will end the service with a psalm – city type theme with the video of traffic in tokyo (arrive) and a prayer to close

This follows up the previous service on psalms -- participants were invited to bring their own psalm.

Some examples:

My Psalm of Complacency by Jonathan Hassell

Oh Lord,
It's too easy to forget you

Your call on me often doesn't get through
Muffled by the bustle of my life
My multi-tasking mind

To you I call
Break through any barriers I have erected
Whether knowingly or by accident
Through trying to be contemporary

Break through
My complacency
My arrogance
My intellect

Help me to be more than observer
Finding new neuroses
To keep life full
And yet empty

Guide me
Make me unable to contain your gifts
Move me
Help me to hold on until it hurts

Because although I crave your peace
I need your justice

Agitate
Do not leave me in my self-sufficiency

Help me to need you more
Take me places where I must turn to you
To get me through and find you're all I need

And when I need it
As you often do
Send your irrepressible joy
Blowing through
Leave me startled
Grinning uncontrollably
Almost giddy
Embarrassingly happy
A gift bestowed by a spendthrift
The Inspirer of all

Oh Lord,
It's too easy to forget you
Break through

*****

I am frustrated by the mundanity of life
the superficiality of what I am offered each day
or my own lack of energy.

My life threatens to stagnate
when what I really want to do is fly away, to run for the horizon.
But what will happen to the people I leave behind?

I remember moments when things were different.
The most intense times
when someone kissed me unexpectedly or cried on my shoulder
when God spoke to me or took hold of my hand.

I thank God for those times.
And I thank God for stability day-to-day - for I can't stay on the mountain top.

*****

I can no longer praise God like I once did.

Once I could follow formulas
sing songs ("Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee...")
say the standard prayers ("Almighty and most merciful Father...")
spend certain specified times in a church building.

Now I see that praise must be earned.
Now I see that it is not tied to words or times.

My soul longs for something - but what?

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Photos

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Psalm structure twister

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