Canadian Summer Psalm 23
“Loving God, to whom / we flock, from whom / I wander…”
Canadian Summer Psalm 23
“Loving God, to whom / we flock, from whom / I wander…”
Where Alter’s Psalter falters
Two months ago, I read through Robert Alter’s translation of and commentary on the Psalms, part of a much larger project covering the entire Hebrew Bible. Alter’s insights into the text as well as into the intricacies of the Hebrew language are amazing, the results of patient scholarship and an evident love of scripture. Although…
Weather or not
Had King David lived in Ontario, I think a September day might well have inspired him to write Psalm 19. You know the sort – where the sapphire sky beckons your gaze irresistibly upward and your heart craves something more. It’s nothing less than a glimpse of the eternal. The breeze is like a heavenly…
Bible | Church Life | Opinion
At last!
Three months ago, I wrote of my decades-long effort to set the Psalms to verse so that they could be sung to their proper Genevan melodies. This began in the mid-1980s when I was around 30 years old. But I had already been inspired by Calvin Seerveld’s versification of Genevan Psalm 128 in the late…
‘The heritage of those who fear Your name’
In our daily trek through the Psalms, Ed and I just finished Psalm 27. It’s only 14 verses long but it’s particularly potent with trust in God, and a resultant hope through desperate times.
Chickadee psalms
If I were a chickadee. . . I’d be a classical chickadee. My nest entrance would be a perfect circle.
The Niagara Psalter
Ever since I was a young man I have been obsessed with the biblical Psalms. Perhaps it has something to do with sharing my name with the archetypal Israelite king to whom many of the Psalms are attributed. Or it may be that my love of music predisposed me to a book whose contents were expected to be sung from ancient times.
Autumn psalm
What would David have said about Ontario in autumn? Of the explosion of colour in our forests – and what would he have written about our hills, far as the eye can see, on fire with red and gold and yellow? Would he have seen a metaphor for the way that God makes everything new – sometimes through literal flame, often through figurative flame – through the dying of the old ways to make way for what’s next?
To renew creation
There is an ancient tradition tying Psalm 104 together with the celebration of Pentecost, the day the church celebrates the sending of the Holy Spirit.
