Let the rivers clap their hands, and let the hills ring out with joy before the LORD, who comes to judge the earth.
Psalm 98
“Let the rivers clap their hands, and let the hills ring out with joy before the LORD, who comes to judge the earth…” Psalm 98
What is your soundtrack in hard times? Is there a song or an album you associate with a particular experience or a period of your life? Sufjan Steven’s Carrie and Lowell spoke to me in seminary. So did Beyonce’s self-titled album, in 2013. Lately, it’s Joni Mitchell’s Clouds that brings me home. In seasons laden with heavy memories, music becomes the through line, and not necessarily because it “matches” my mood—but because it can hold the fullness of my experience.
When the Psalms feel abstract to me, I try to approach them this way. These songs were the soundtrack (and still are) for people of the Jewish faith, for Jesus, and his followers. These are the lyrics and the rhythms that accompany the stories of our scripture, in all of their vast emotional landscape— not because they always match the mood, but because somehow they can hold the fullness of the story. Desolation! cries Luke in our Gospel reading this week. Joy! shouts the psalmist. And somehow it all hangs together.
Whether in music or scripture, in natural beauty, or a moment of pause, may the Spirit meet you this week, exactly where you are. This season, post-election and heading into holy days, comes with so many highs and lows. Know that God has room for all the layers of you, the multitudes that life contains. The love of God meets you now.
