Midweek Reflection by Ruth Lemmen:
We’ll be focusing on the Psalm reading this Sunday, and Psalms are essentially songs. The book of Psalms is the prayer book and hymn book of the Bible. Like contemporary songs and poems, they give voice to a variety of emotions and experiences in ways that prose is unable to.
One of the ways that I observe the church year in my life is through music. As we walk through the seasons of the year, I change some of the music I listen to. In the last week, I have pulled up my Lent playlists. My earbuds are now full of slower tempo songs in minor keys, drawing me into the themes of this season of the year. On Easter, I will pull up the Easter playlist and rejoice with upbeat songs in major keys. But for these weeks, I am letting the music help me slow down and reflect. Here’s a few of my favorites (hopefully available wherever you get your music, if you want to take up this practice, too).
“Dust We Are And Shall Return” (Lent)—Brilliance
“From dust we've come / and dust we are / and shall return
Be still my soul / And let it go / Just let it go”
“Always Good” (Resurrection Songs: Prologue)-- Andrew Peterson
“Well it's so hard to know what You're doing / Why won't You tell it all plain?
But You said You'd come back on the third day / And Peter missed it again and again”
“Beautiful Things” (Beautiful Things)-- Gungor
“You make beautiful things out of the dust / You make beautiful things / You make beautiful things out of us”
“Barton Hollow” (The Civil Wars)-- The Civil Wars
“I'm a dead man walking here / But that's the least of all my fears / Ooh, underneath the water
It's not Alabama clay / That gives my trembling hands away / Please forgive me father”
“Have Mercy” (Psalms)-- Sandra McCracken
“Oh help my unbelief / Oh help my unbelief, O Lord
Have mercy, O Lord / Have mercy”
The Messiah: Part 2—Handel (performed by many groups)
“He was despised and rejected of men, / a man of sorrows and acquainted with
grief”