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Richard's Psalm Project Blog

The “Group W” Bench

January 21, 2008

Only Arlo Guthrie fans will get this, the pic taken outside our hotel in Des Moines. If you can’t read the plate on the bench, it reads “Group W”. The manager has a thing for folk music.

What does it say about me that my friends and I in high school had “The Alice’s Restaurant Masacree” completely memorized, to be referenced liberally among those from the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Spinal Tap, Bill Cosby, the Far Side, Hill Street Blues… I think I need a question mark at the end of that sentence. But you’re with me, right?

Thanks to Dan, Eric, Gerald, Brian, and Rick. Here’s to Spanish camp, Face, and Cosby.

Original news story about The Ordeal from 1966.

Ah-da da-da-da-da dom
at Alice’s Restauraaaant.

Tom Bosley, Man of Mystery

January 18, 2008

When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.”
-Chinese proverb

It’s just that when I hear Mr. Bleekman’s voice on Clifford , I always think of him It’s not, actually.

Thich Nhat Hahn has a poem about a bell: “Listen, listen! This wonderful sound calls me back to my true home.”

Today for me is about being re-Minded. A word overheard last week took me back to a dream I thought was lost forever. The scent of old yarn in boxes arouses my imagination backwards to my Grandma Lu’s house on the farm. Christ invited his friends to be re-Minded of him every time they ate and drank together.

On a sub-zero day like today here in Ioway, let me be aware that seasons turn again. Let me be re-Membered to the whole, gathered back into creation where all is good. “Jesus, re-Member me when you head home.”

I was at a Holocaust remembrance service a few years ago when I heard the man say, “Only that which is remembered can be healed.” I think those words hit all of us as hopeful, even though the remembering does take energy, time and work sometimes.

In a few months, it will be 100 degrees warmer! Memory of the past makes the future hopeful.

Oliver Sacks knows a man who has virtually no short-term memory. Memory is our link to identity. Great Radio Lab show about that here.

Mr. Bleekman’s voice-over guy reminds me of Mr. C, and the Fonz-style switch-comb I had when I was in 6th grade.

Today as I am re-membering elements of my life, I invite you to gather your past selves-- the You that once didn’t know how to speak words, the You that once called parmesan cheese “farmer john cheese” because you didn’t know, the You that never worried about the things you worry about now. There’s great value to remembering what is true from your past as a way to help make sense of the path forward. I wrote a song called “Better Git Home” about that idea a few years ago. Re-Membering means integrating.

May the God who holds us and keeps us (Psalm 121) bless you in this season of claiming memories and moving forward.

Cry

January 10, 2008

“If I don’t have red, I use blue.”
Pablo Picasso

Where I come from, tears are a gift. You offer this wonder when you are willing to share your tears with someone.

This ad was the first thing I saw this morning on tv as I turned on the telly to check the weather. It reminded me what a blessing it is to be in a friendship, a community, or a place of solitude to witness tears. Crying cleans our bodies. Crying changes our chemistry. Crying brings people together. Crying helps.

Tom Bodett wrote that maybe men resist crying because they’re afraid once they start, they’ll never stop. That he thought we’d stop as soon as we feel better.

Here’s to tears.

let it out by Starrfadu

do you want to lay your head on my shoulder? i don’t mind if you cry sometimes we all just need to let it out

just let your tears run down my arm so I can keep them in a blue jar we’ll drink them later so just let it out

let’s take a walk just to clear our heads i don’t mind that you’re holding my hand you say you love me so just let it out

your smile is a pleasant change from before when you saw you couldn’t take any more sometimes we all just need to let it out

What is Lent?

January 9, 2008

Good question. Since the first volume of The Psalm Project, “Sharing the Road”, is centered on the Lenten season, let’s dig.

Lent is the forty-day liturgical season beginning at Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter. The term Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lencten, which means “Spring.” Lent began as a time of preparation for converts to Christianity, a season of conversion of heart and renewal of faith.

During Lent, our focus is primarily on the person of Jesus Christ. In fact, the season is forty days to mirror Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness that lasted forty days. The forty days, by the way, do not include Sundays because each Sunday represents a “little Easter”. It’s not necessarily a somber season, Lent, but certainly an intense one. You will notice in worship that we “bury” the Alleluias that we typically sing in the liturgy until Easter day.

Great article on worship design Lent through Easter.

Now, so that you, too, can be the life of the party with these tidbits of Lenten liturgical trivia:

“What are we but a mass of thawing clay?”
Henry David Thoreau

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, with worship leading us to consider both our mortality and repentance in the light of God’s great love. The “imposition of ashes” on the forehead is an ancient Christian practice, going back to the 10th century. Biblically, ashes are a symbol of purification and penitence (see Numbers 19:9, 17; Hebrews 9:13; Jonah 3:6; Matthew 11:21, and Luke 10:13 ).

In worship, as the ashes are placed on our foreheads in the sign of the cross, we will hear the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return,” God’s words to Adam in Genesis 3:19. With this symbol of Christ, we enter the forty day journey together that is rich with possibilities for renewal.

The Psalm Project song “Wash Me Clean” comes from Psalm 51, a central text for this day.

On Maundy Thursday we focus on the scenes of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet, Last Supper, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemene and the betrayal of his friend Judas Iscariot. Maundy comes from the latin mandatum, meaning “commandment”. It refers to the teaching of Jesus as he washed his disciples’ feet: “A new commandment I give to you, That you love one another; as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) The worship service usually culminates in the stripping of the altar of all our typical worship symbols. The Psalm Project song “Now to God I Make My Vows” was written expressly for this moment in the service.

Good Friday focuses on the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ. On this day we proclaim the central event of our faith, the story of God’s loving work in Christ to redeem all people.

The term “Good Friday” is possibly a distortion of the English “God’s Friday.” Other names for the day are “Holy Friday” among Latin nations, “Great Friday” among Slavic peoples, “Friday of Mourning” in Germany, “Long Friday” in Norway, and “Holy Friday” (Viernes Santo) among Hispanic peoples.

Easter Vigil is a worship day of telling the stories of faith and celebrating renewal of faith. On this day, all over the world, adults will be Baptized and claim the promise of God that is pure gift to all of us. Consider Easter Vigil kind of a sequel to Good Friday.

Great article on Easter Vigil, including hors d’oeuvres and champagne reception.

Easter Sunday worship celebrates a cornerstone of our faith, the resurrection of Jesus Christ in which we find all our hope. The lily is a sign of the Resurrection. Like other bulb flowers that seem to die away then return with new life each year, the white lily is a sign of the pure new life that comes through the Resurrection of Jesus.

As we approach Ash Wednesday and make plans for Lent, God is with us!

I’ve been doin’ some hard travelin’
I thought you knowed
I’ve been doin’ some hard travelin’
way down the road
Well, if you don’t think I’ve been through hell,
Just follow me down to the places I’ve been
I’ve been doin’ some hard travelin’, Lord.

Woody Guthrie

The Wedding Song That Ate the Earth

January 6, 2008

Perhaps everything terrible is,
in its deepest being,
something that needs our love

Rainer Maria Rilke

It’s not that I’m a grinch about weddings or wedding music. Trish and I do several wedding gigs a year, and we typically learn any song the couple wants to bless their little nuptials.

We may need to change that policy.

Last year, we did music for wonderful weddings. A few of the songs I didn’t like.

Compiled for you here, now, a few lines from actual songs. Were one inclined to evil, these fragments might be assembled into one single song and could destroy life on our planet. So, gentle reader, for the sake of all that is good, be careful with these. I should apologize for any songs that I am coming down on that you may enjoy. I really should.

“When God made you,
He must have been thinking about
me.”
(Yes, I always suspected my beloved was only given life on the planet for my benefit.)

“Some people wait a lifetime
for a moment like this.”
(Apparently these people are wed on their deathbeds after a lifetimes of waiting.)

“From here on after,
let’s stay the same we are right now.”
(Apart from a cryogenic honeymoon, I’m thinking juust about everybody changes over time. I’m pretty sure this idea is the best recipe for disaster in a marriage.)

“Now that I’ve found you,
I believe a miracle has come,
when God sends a perfect one.”
(My wife must be so contented knowing I can do no wrong.)

“I promise to give all I’ve got to give
to make all your dreams come true.”
(Think of me as your personal omnipotent savior, master of time and space.)

“I live only for your happiness.”
(Let’s hear it for codependence!)

“There’s no way
I could ever let you go,
even if I wanted to.”
(Please, someone ‘splain me.)

Please feel free to email me with your favorite or least favorite weddings songs. I keep a file.

rcbc

In the CD Player

December 19, 2007

Is is both terrible and comforting to dwell in the inconceivable nearness of God, and so to be loved by God that the first and last gift is infinity and inconceivability itself. But we have no choice. God is with us.
- Karl Rahner

In the CD Player

I am feeling better, almost up to full power, thanks to Throat Coat tea, Zinc lozenges, and Trish’s comfort food soup. I believe ‘lozenge’ is among my favorite words.

The Beatles, naturally, is good any time of year. Bobby McFerrin’s “Spontaneous Inventions” is also popular with Sam in the car these days.

Don’t worry.
richard

Where else would God be?

December 17, 2007

The Advent mystery is the beginning of the end of all in us that is not yet Christ.
- Thomas Merton

It’s a chilly Monday, my usual day off, so I am trying to take it easy today. A few things on my list-- pay bills, drink tea, record a guitar part for a CD my wife and I (link to www.riversvoice.com) are working on, flesh out the order of worship for our Christmas Eve service at First Lutheran… I am hoping to have several children read pieces of the Christmas scriptures from Luke this year. Young voices are good for that, like Linus or if there’s a way to get the video right on the site, could you do that for me?) in the Charlie Brown special. Nothing makes grown-ups pay attention like a kid telling a story.

I had a seminary prof who talked about the incarnation this way: It is the particularity of the incarnation that makes the Christian faith so radical. Not just that God came as a human. It’s that God comes in you, and me, and in that swimming fish down there. Astounding.

But really, where else would God be than right here?

To celebrate Christmas is to bow to the Christ in every particle of creation.

The Hindu tradition that says there is one God, and infinite manifestations of that One. Something in common to celebrate and learn from.

I wrote an incarnation song a few years ago playing with an idea of theologian Sallie McFague, that of all the models of what God is to us, one for our time and place might be God as the Whole of Creation of which we all are a part. What would it be like to know God in the manger, but also in the straw underfoot and in the cows? To know God in the cross and tomb, but also in friendships that renew our lives.

I’ll try to get the aforementioned song, “Body of God,” posted before Christmas.

God is with us.
richard

Pregnancy, Wilderness Prophets, and Mucus

December 16, 2007

“We are all meant to be mothers of God.
For God is always needing to be born.”
-Meister Eckhart

My winter cold has landed. Ugh. My voice is down the scale closer to Leonard Cohen than normal. Fun for awhile to be able to moan along with Crash Test Dummies, but I miss my own voice. It made worship leading today interesting to not have a singing voice to speak of (heh). I’m thankful for my worship team. Last weekend, friends in Des Moines took us to see the Grossology exhibit. All you need for party conversation about various bodily functions popular with our first grade son. Maybe I picked up something there, because I am now the poster boy for the “Nigel Nose-It-All” presentation. Let’s leave it at that.

Advent is about waiting, hoping, expecting. I always identify with Mary and Elizabeth in this season more than even Joseph and Zachariah. Pregnant women embody the story of Advent beautifully for the rest of us these days in a solemn and joyful way. So thank them if you know them.

On the other hand, Advent is also not so lovely… it’s also about urgently getting things in order. John the Baptizer yells at us from across the centuries to take it seriously, this time to prepare for God coming in the flesh. It’s good we have this season as a wake up call: What changes do I need to make to be faithful? What things do I need to say Yes to? And say No to?

Our story of Incarnation-- Emmanuel, God With us in the flesh-- is arguably the most radical part of Christianity.

Here’s a song about John’s call in Advent: “Prepare the Way For Love” Enjoy.

richard

Welcome

December 10, 2007

By virtue of the creation and, still more, of the incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see. - Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (I think I will often start blog entries with a quote like this. Can you find a cool way to set it off?)

Hi. First entry. Stardate 12.10.2007. Thanks for stopping in.

I started a blog a couple years ago but it didn’t stick. That surprised me because I used to be an avid journaler, and I thought I’d just channel that into blogging. I think I was self-conscious about what I would write, and that’s a recipe for boring.

In this blog I hope to offer some conversation and questions around my study of the Psalms, being a worship leader in a big Lutheran church, being a daddy and husband, and doing my best to be faith-full with what I’ve got in front of me.

I invite you into the conversations, the music, and the mystery. Thanks again.

richard