Serious in the effort.

I told myself to hold on to the energy, the thought, the momentum… and hold holdhold I did.

I want to tell you about The Psalms project.

A slow study. A study of slowing.

It is my own project. But it is a project that has shifted even from whence it began a month-ish ago.

I am beginning to appreciate the shifts in the things that I attempt; an indication that I am allowing space in the effort to be lead, to hear, to follow; I hope; I pray.

So the Psalms Project started as a commonplace effort and then it grew uncommon; from the desire to sit and slow myself with a meditation on these timeless meditations… becoming an experiment with sharing some fun but serious attempts to create poetry from poetry.

I like this idea of looking at this earth and all of life, like the brilliant art of a Creative God expressing and crafting a form of poetry with the elements of dirt, light, dark, wind, water, breath.

I wish there was a verb form of poetry. Poetize. To make poetry of a thing. You cook something, it changes a little. You poetize something, it changes a little. You put it through the heat of your life and out it comes, after some time, hopefully yummy.

The Psalms project started with journaling through a time spent meditating on a Psalm. Starting with 1. Praying through the Psalm. Praying for one person, or many, as I was led to pray. The next day, the next psalm, another person. This lasted for a few days and a few psalms when I realized even that these Psalms were like David’s own prayers for himself, for other people, for the world at large. I really enjoyed the thought of David himself writing out his prayers for his world and its struggles. And then I think it was by the time I hit Psalm 4 that a friend sent out a text for prayer… I had been thinking of her already and started to see in my meditational writing that there was the shape of another ‘poem’ present. I worked on it a little bit and then shared it with her as a ‘meditation on psalm 4’.

A few days, a week, later I was writing out a meditation on another Psalm when I thought about something that I had super spontaneously tossed out as advice to a 7th grade friend on a final writing assignment for the school year – he had to write a poem, free verse, no structural guidelines. He said he couldn’t do it. He didn’t know how to do it. He writes stories, his sister writes poetry. I told him… just write it like a story and then go back and break it down into lines of a poem.

I decided to take my own advice with one of the meditations and I was able to build something resembling a poem. It was an enjoyable process. Spending that time with the words of the psalm, of David’s heart… spending time trying to see what he saw, feel what he felt – a man after GOD’s own heart.

I want to keep doing this.

To what end.

Just to spend this time in this way.

But also to share.

The quickest way to loose control of a thing… is to give it away, eh?

But I honestly also just want to experience the challenge of sharing what I write.

So this is my introduction to a fun little project that I hope to give to you. Go easy on me. I’m a little shy.