During Lent (February 22-April 8), we are steeping ourselves in the Psalms, this ancient poetry of generations of the faithful, as an entryway for our personal and collective prayer lives.
The psalms are full of all sorts of emotions, including the unpleasant and hard ones: anger, lament, fear, depression, revenge, retaliation. Many of us grew up learning to avoid expressing these hard emotions and sometimes feeling bad about ourselves if we did. And when the psalms express revenge and retaliation, even the destruction of our enemies, it’s a little hard to take.
But anger, lament, fear, revenge and the like are all a part of being human, just as much as joy, delight, calm and compassion. We are wired that way.
On Sunday, we’ll look at an angry, vengeful psalm (109) as an entryway for reflecting together on how we deal with our own anger. When does anger serve us? What is it about? What’s the best way to deal with it?
Come Sunday and we’ll look at the fire together.
In faith,
Kent
If you’d like to lean into other Lenten opportunities this season, check them out here.
