Psalm 43

I am on trial.
O Godde, vindicate me!
You be my judge and my jury-
Set me free!

Offer me a sentence of hope.
Offer me liberation.
Offer me freedom in Your covenant.

I will leave the courthouse singing Your praises!
My joy will be a disruption in the streets!
I will not be downhearted,
For Your hope is my guide-
Your lovingkindness is my vindication.
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To read the original, go here. I have not written a psalm in a while and while I am sorry to you, the reader, I am more sorry to myself. I forget how much taking the time to meditate on God's Word helps put me in a positive frame of mind. It clears my mind of unneccessary distractions and soothes my soul. For the past few days I have been plagued by relapse dreams. These bad dreams linger with me for the whole day and put me in a bad mood. I was really moody and tired yesterday-on the fourth and after making a fabulous cake, no less!-and when I woke up today still feeling negative, I knew it was time to take some action! The action was meditation. I consider writing my psalms a form of meditation, as I first read the original psalm and quietly ponder it before I begin writing. I then let the writing flow out of me, largely uninterrupted by editing. I feel like I really am in conscious contact with Godde.

Speaking of the "Word of God," I want to make myself clear. When I say that I meditate upon God's Word, I do not mean that I believe that the Bible is God's own inspired, infallible words. I believe the Bible was written by people who had experiences with the Divine. These people were definitely fallible and it is up to us to read the Bible responsibly. That means doing some research. That means recognizing that much of the Bible is really metaphor. That means it is up to us to decide what we really believe and it is certainly okay to question and/or disregard some parts of the Bible. This passage by Marcus Borg in his book, "Reading the Bible Again for the First Time," really helped me:

It is important to emphasize that the Christian tradition throughout its history has spoken of the Bible as the Word of God (capital W and singular), not as the words of God (lowercase w and plural). If it had used the latter phrase, then one might reasonably claim that believing the words of the Bible to be God's words is intrinsic to being Christian. But the use of a capital W and the singular suggests a different meaning. Namely, "Word" is being used in a metaphorical and nonliteral sense. (33)