I am going to hide myself in the Lord
The great and majestic mountain
Dangerous in terrain
Thrilling in grandeur
Like a bird I fly into the safety of your embrace
High and secure
Beyond the reach of the enemy’s arrows
His bow bent to attack; the arrow fitted into the string

The refuge of your mountain Lord
Firm in strength
Standing guard over our vulnerability
Outside you rain down fire of wrath
The portion assigned for the work of the enemy

In the mountain of the Lord my soul is protected
Where deeds are righteous as you are righteous
We see your face as you see ours
We embrace, endure and celebrate
That we might be with you

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.