Storms - April 4, 2025
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 95* & 102; PM Psalm 107:1-32; Jer. 23:1-8; Rom. 8:28-39; John 6:52-59
During Lent, praying through the psalms has been a meaningful space for reflection and honesty for me. For this reason, I am grateful for the rotation in the daily lectionary so there are a few recommendations of where to begin. Late last week, while away on vacation with my family, I sat with Psalm 88. It was a darker theme than I anticipated as I relaxed on a screened porch upon the cusp of Mobile Bay. It begins “O Lord, my God, my Savior, by day and night I cry to you. Let my prayer enter into your presence; incline your ear to my lamentation. For I am full of trouble…”
It was strangely serene to sit with these vulnerable words of heartache when nothing else was pressing upon me in the moment. Praying Psalm 88 invited me to open some of the pockets and drawers within my psyche where I have filed away regret and pain and fear. This prayer brings up rejection, destruction, and the troubles that terrorize our minds. While many psalms move through a verse or two of rage before closing with resolution, Psalm 88 ends starkly, “My friend and my neighbor you have put away from me, and darkness is my only companion.” Those words gutted me, for the sadness and torment upon the heart of the psalmist who wrote it, for the many with whom these words resonate, and for the seasons in my own life when things felt hard, dark, and lonely. I believe that this psalm puts words and flesh on emotions that many are quick to stifle. It calls us to pay attention to angst. It describes the effects of anxiety and depression upon our spirits, our bodies, and our existence.
I felt myself leaning upon the wisdom of Thích Nhất Hạnh, allowing the spaces of stormy feelings and memories to flow over me. Through his writings in You Are Here, Nhất Hạnh describes emotional storms as shaking the boughs of our trees, like the powerful winds that have torn through the Southeast lately. During such disruptions, the Vietnamese monk invites us to move out of the branches and go deeper into ourselves to our trunks, just beneath our navels. It is there that we allow deep breaths to still us as we feel rooted. It is there that we shelter in our safe place, finding steadiness until the storm passes…usually in 20 minutes or so.
Here is another truth: some do get uprooted by the storms around us and within ourselves. Sometimes spiritual practices of mindfulness are not enough to quell the illness upon our hearts and minds. We need help from others to navigate what healing and wholeness can look like. We need the care of the Holy Spirit and others who are trained in healing arts to attend to us…and this helps remind us that we are not meant to live life alone. We need God and we need one another – even when there are storms within us and among us. God made us in love and made us for love, so that we share love and connection.
Take a little time to sit with Psalm 102, appointed for this Friday morning in Lent. It opens, “Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come before you”. Lean upon God with any heaviness upon your heart. Participate in this intentional unburdening as a piece of Lenten preparedness. I pray that you will feel lighter and grow in your trust of God. Jesus prayed this prayer. Martin Luther King, Jr. (who died on this day in 1968) prayed this psalm. May we all stand fast in our faith as children of God this day.
Faithfully,
Katherine+
Reflection and Challenge
Sit with Psalm 102. Feel how the psalmist appealed to God. How does this reflect your prayers with the Lord? Write down what is upon your heart. Then, take two minutes to breathe slowly and pray to God in silence.