Psalm 30

Epiphany 6 - Year B
Easter Vigil - Years A, B, C
Easter 3 - Year C
Proper 5 (10)- Year C
Proper 8 (13)- Year B
Proper 9 (14)- Year C


Day by day it is evening; it is morning.

 

Day by day it is weeping; it is joy.

 

Day by day it is exile; it is ecstatic union.

 

Day by day it is remembering; it is dreaming.

 

Day by day it is created; it is creative.

 

Day by day; it is day-by-day.

 

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/04/psalm-30.html

 


 

"What point is there in my death, my going down to the abyss?
Can the dust praise you or proclaim your faithfulness?" [vs 9, NJB]

"Some Pharisees in the crowd said to [Jesus], 'Master, reprove your disciples,' but he answered, 'I tell you, if these keep silence, the stones will cry out." [Luke 19:40 NJB]

Smashing these together - "I tell you, if my disciples die, dust will proclaim the miracle of life."

Have people been telling you to self-censor yourself, to commit psychological hari-kiri? Just grin, knock the dust off your feet, and continue your life. Death will take care of itself and G*D will take care of the dust.

While dust can be seen as being of no account, it is also possible to read dust quite positively and creatively. This can be seen as a rallying cry to do what we can do and to do what we do do well. There is no point to being silent when we have been given a message of a new life of openness and fullness.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/february2003.html

 


 

Up where the smoke is
All billered and curled
'Tween pavement and stars
Is the chimney sweep world

When the's 'ardly no day
Nor 'ardly no night
There's things 'alf in shadow
And 'alf way in light
On the roof tops of London
Coo, what a sight!

Chim chim cher-ee

Between times is our usual space -- 'Tween weeping and joy, mourning and dancing, and need and healing.

Coo, what a sight!

Thanks be to G*D for a lifetime of opportunity to practice faithfulness.

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/april2004.html

 


 

When we remember the dispute between Jesus' response to the leper's request as one of anger or pity, we can play a bit here as we hear G*D's anger being for a moment and G*D's favor/pity for a lifetime.

Often times we hear popular religion getting this the other way around. A basically angry God can be temporarily placated with a bit of repentance, the recitation of dogmatic mantras, or lots of lout praise. When sufficient has been done, God will have pity and we can move on to repeat the cycle because we are very unoriginal sinners who repeat basic sins again and again.

So, how does this model show up in your life? What G*D are you imaging? Are you equal parts of anger and pity? Are you weighted toward anger? Toward pity? Is your current balance one you want to keep or change? Why? So what are you doing to keep or change it?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/february2006.html

 


 

Psalm 30 or Psalm 66:1-9

Lift with the legs. Carry that box to the moving van. Let your legs help you put it down. Check the pedometer. Repeat.

In this form moving is pretty routine, boring, repetitive, deadly.

Can it be seen as a dance? How would Arthur Murray have choreographed this move?

The psalmist talks of turning our mourning, our everydayness, into dancing or (as the same word is translated in 29:9) a whirl.

Whirling - Dancing - Moving

We move from midnight weeping to morning joy, from noontime seas to crossing a river at dusk into a new land. And there was evening and morning, the next day.

What labor will you transform by whirling it about in your imagination until you can see a dance?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/july2004.html

 


 

Psalm 30 or Psalm 130 or Lamentations 3:23-33

We, created in the image of G*D, have the power to forgive, to redeem. Will we be generous with this power?

We have the experience of renewed health after illness and, by extension, of resurrection after death. Will we extrapolate from our experience in our interactions with others or limit it to ourselves?

We have a new day in which to move beyond our prior responses to life, not trying to clone our experience but build on it. Will we stretch to a next layer of life that is both higher and deeper than where we have been and include others in that?

Knowing we have an option beyond yesterday and today opens to us a basic understanding of life -- life-long learning. We can take the generosity of our ancestors who took things as far as they could and now push things as far as we can that those who follow will be grateful for our generosity that has so blessed them. We can. Will we?

http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/july2006.html

 


 

Psalm 30
2 Kings 5:1-14
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Mark 1:40-45

Naaman begins with the imagery of the Psalmist and Paul, that one can make their own way in relationship to G*D. Naaman seeks to punish himself to free himself. He looks for some quick fix answer that G*D will bestow upon him, as Jesus did the leper.

After all, he is important enough to receive. In fact, things shouldn't have gone awry in the first place.

There is anger here in Elisha's willingness to display his prophetic power, in Naaman's response to Elisha's directions, in the leper calling Jesus to him instead of calling out "Unclean", and in Jesus' response of healing in anger and casting a healed one away (if you have a Bible that only talks of Jesus' pity or compassion and his sending a healed person to the priests, you need to read some footnotes or other translations).

Anger and discipline often go together. They can urge one another onward. These passages are not helpfully dealt with at face value.

The conscience in these passages is portrayed by an unnamed slave girl. It would be interesting to imagine her comment on each of the subsequent scenes. As a slave, what would she think of the Psalmist desire for extraverted thanks? of Paul's bootstrap pulling? of the leper's trick and Jesus' anger? To look at these passages through her eyes might bear some good fruit.

- - -

a Red Queen and Paul
run twice as fast to stay in place
run twice as often to stay fit
run twice as far to find a shortcut

this running demands results
Naaman ran twice
to Elisha and away
walked twice
to a river and from

this running presumes rights
a leper putting a burden on Jesus
Jesus casting out leprosy
and casting out a healed leper

this running calls for questions
is twice really enough today
is the end result the result we seek
is anything but power used in healings
is thanksgiving ever humbly done

this running eventually runs out
our historic restlessness is calmed
we are grateful to not prove our power
to not demand curing
to breathe and breathe again

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html


 

The "dancing" that mourning has become is noted to be the same word as "whirl" in 29:9. In Psalm 29 there is a footnote that "causes the oaks to whirl" might also be translated, "causes the deer to calve."

If one is permitted to smash these together we find our mourning whirled into the birth of new life.

Such a new life might even move beyond a G*D that is only "good, restorative, prosperity-giving," to be played off against adversity. Here we find ourselves casting about for an alternative god when things go klunk in the night.

A whirling dervish dance is slower than one might think and brings all the rooms of one's life together on the sill of a door to enlightenment beyond dualistic patterns.

Rejoice, weeping is connected with joy.

- - -

twilight comes on
doubts begin to arise
was the day as joyful as thought
when we play it again

evening deepens
relationships aren't as bright as thought
shadows bring back old fears
second-guessing sets in

night sets in
doubts become certainties
it was only false joy
our friends fair-weather

midnight rolls around
rolls over and under
a storm-tossed sea
never-ending

darkest before dawn
is no old-sailor's tale
all warmth is used up
for ever and ever

and dawn so long in coming
creeps maddeningly forward
false dawn after false dawn
tantalizing in each betrayal

morning rises
bringing relief in its train
but so much weariness
joy needs rest

morning settles
tense muscles relax
a smile returns
a hum begins

morning warms
a slow jig starts in a toe
sackcloth comes off
naked joy is still

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html


 

Psalm 30 or Psalm 130
2 Samuel 1:1, 17-27 or Wisdom of Solomon 1:13-15, 2:23-24
2 Corinthians 8:7-15
Mark 5:21-43

"Test your genuine love against the earnestness of others."
"If eagerness is there, your gift is acceptable."

Needs around us have hastened to make themselves known. These are givens in our lives. The options regard our response.

Are we as eager to live alongside a need, taking it to our hearts, as such needs are revealed everywhere they travel? Here is a test worthy of our lives. It is a test that is as communal in nature as it is individual. Encouraging one another to do well, even to share our insights with one another, is acceptable morality in this test.

Question: Where do abundance and need meet?
Response: _______________________

If it helps you may want to also make this an open-book test as well as a communal one.

- - -

sensitive to word and touch
we journey toward <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUP4tFGlFXk">a great getting-up day</a>
when and where
our eagerness is sufficient
for earnest need

attentive beyond death
we settle in to days no more
no more mourning
riling to despair
no more no more
holding us back

in moments of generosity
we undertake a beginning desire
little by little
through this year
according to what we have
abundance in need

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html


 

Psalm 30 or Psalm 146

Where is the breath of life? That needs to be our orientation. To put one's trust in any given source presumes that it will continue to be a source of inspiration.

Those who are able to help liberate in one direction often find themselves caught enslaving several other directions. Some are good at giving food to the hungry and not so good at freeing prisoners. Some can uphold an orphan and turn their back on someone bowed down.

This is part of a gift of community we find it difficult to deal with. We set up generic leaders who aren't able to handle some particulars and are not able to delegate. This results in gaps in our common good.

So it is important to identify who has the breath of life in a particular direction and to follow them and to follow someone else when another breath is needed. Blessings upon your discernment.

- - -

so if I kick off this mortal coil
and leave my praise
to my dust
will it?

what pride I
continue to exhibit
as though my praise
could be left behind

well were it so
and my dust
praised forth
what then?

for one thing
morning
time to hang up
sackcloth

so caught in weeping
so ignorant of joy
my mourning must be peeled
away from my need

arise sackcloth
dance dust
expand soul
silence anger

weeping may linger
joy may tarry
prosperity may plead
dust may profit

- - -

Anonymous (Reader) ...
Ah Wesley, you have it

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html


 

Psalm 30 or Psalm 66:1-9

The very journey G*D has been on and the very journey we have been on, with all their attendant ups and downs, leads us to desire a point of stasis - "I shall never be moved." Somehow we imagine that this concretization of experience is of more value that the ebb and flow of life. We erase our experience of our own life and our experience of G*D's presence (whether filled with anger or favor) in favor of a static ideal, a never changing creed that betrays its very origin.

Even when we imagine ourselves a strong mountain, we find ourselves dismayed. The statement, "I shall never be moved," is idolatry at its most evident and in our blindspot - both at once.

- - -

giving thanks to
giving thanks with
is an ocean-wide gap
between religions
within a religion

the "to"ers
do unto
at a moments notice
with a goal
of no more heretics

the "with"ers
race on
with an eternity
to dance
new wine

bless G*D
bless neighbors
now and always
G*D blesses
neighbor blesses

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html


 

Verses 11-12 indicate how good news has a way of bubbling up. Not only does the arc of G*D bend toward justice, but toward beauty and other expressions of good news.

You did it: you changed wild lament
     into whirling dance;
You ripped off my black mourning band
     and decked me with wildflowers.
I'm about to burst with song;
     I can't keep quiet about you.
God, my God,
     I can't thank you enough.
               [The Message]

As folks who are living toward being G*D, this becomes a part of our call – to change lament into dance. As you pay attention (but not too much) to the news of the day, there are many opportunities to identify lament and to address them with your presence. Pick one. Rip off your mourning hesitation and deck the halls with wild-flowers. It may be you will change places with a leper; it may mean addressing your own sorrow; it may find you simply smiling and humming through your day, making folks wonder what you are up to.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

 


 

Can dust praise? Can G*D be in Sheol?

Yes, I can. Yes, G*D can.

Let's dance. G*D's joy.

[Note: Hmm, Friday got here early this week.]

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/04/psalm-30.html

 


 

While appreciating the possible transformation of weeping into joy, that is not the only way people experience life. Post-traumatic Stresses, of whatever etiology, have a way of continuing the weeping, even in the presence of Joy-All-Around. Anyone know of a Psalm/Poem for those who suffer a Post-traumatic response, even to joy?

Here are some attempts:

The most popular on through a Google search is Survivor Psalm. It doesn't seem to have the same turn of thanks at the end.

Psalm 30 - A Cycle of Renewal is interesting for its strong body imagery, particularly of the liver expelling that which is no longer useful.

P.T.S.D. Love Poem has some annotations that are important. I was struck by this line: "I see in you the answer/To every time I've prayed." It can do an important bounce back-and-forth between stress and response, one person to another, and G*D/Human relationship. Hear each aspect say that line.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/06/psalm-30.html

 


 

There is no keeping a joy from bubbling over the limits of propriety. One way or another; one time or another; one setting or another will find its expression lighting the way for another joy to be expressed.

Joy calls to joy across every deep chaotic place, binding otherwise disparate persons and situations together.

Our one warning is not to turn a joy into a bargaining chip, it simply is. When mourning finds its dance, it is a Zorba dance that blocks out all other realities for a time. Joy can’t be invested, only well used. And well-used joy goes on and on, always paying forward.

So what healing, differentiated from curing, is bubbling in your life today? May you engage it today and not put it off until it can but burst out. Quiet, consistent bubbling is a good way to interact with equally present difficulties.

http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/02/psalm-30.html