It’s easy to get lost in Washington DC. It shouldn’t be; the city is basically a diamond shape, one big grid with A, B, C streets going one way and 1,2,3 streets the other. Should be simple, but most of us can attest that by the time we make two or three turns and run into yet another diagonal street with a state name (Mass Ave or New York) then the average Joe is completely disoriented.
The good thing is that RE-orientation in DC is only a matter of heading down a lettered street and seeing if the numbers or letters get bigger or smaller. The disorientation process is easy to fall into, but the re-orientation antidote is equally simple.
Walter Brueggemann, one of the authors of the Spiritual Formation Bible some of us have been using, suggests we can categorize the Psalms into three categories: Orientation, Disorientation, Re-orientation. Throughout the years, scholars have not used Brueggemann’s terms, but they have determined that there are groups of psalms that can be classified together because of similarities: Hymns, Individual Laments, Community Laments, Songs of Trust, Individual Thanksgiving Psalms, Royal Psalms, Wisdom Psalms, Pilgrimage Psalms, Liturgy Psalms.
I like Brueggamann’s simple categories because they seem useful in my life. I seem to be in a continual process of knowing what I am doing (oriented . . . these are brief moments;-), which quickly devolves into not knowing what I am doing (disoriented), which hopefully, eventually is solved by a period of re-orientation. It’s true of my driving, my work life, my parenting, my coaching…and perhaps most true of my spiritual walk. The Psalms provide us a way to pray through it all. A guide or map for the lost, a spiritual GPS that maps us from our current lost state and points us toward God. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like something useful.
The good thing is that RE-orientation in DC is only a matter of heading down a lettered street and seeing if the numbers or letters get bigger or smaller. The disorientation process is easy to fall into, but the re-orientation antidote is equally simple.
Walter Brueggemann, one of the authors of the Spiritual Formation Bible some of us have been using, suggests we can categorize the Psalms into three categories: Orientation, Disorientation, Re-orientation. Throughout the years, scholars have not used Brueggemann’s terms, but they have determined that there are groups of psalms that can be classified together because of similarities: Hymns, Individual Laments, Community Laments, Songs of Trust, Individual Thanksgiving Psalms, Royal Psalms, Wisdom Psalms, Pilgrimage Psalms, Liturgy Psalms.
I like Brueggamann’s simple categories because they seem useful in my life. I seem to be in a continual process of knowing what I am doing (oriented . . . these are brief moments;-), which quickly devolves into not knowing what I am doing (disoriented), which hopefully, eventually is solved by a period of re-orientation. It’s true of my driving, my work life, my parenting, my coaching…and perhaps most true of my spiritual walk. The Psalms provide us a way to pray through it all. A guide or map for the lost, a spiritual GPS that maps us from our current lost state and points us toward God. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like something useful.
Mark
Source on Psalms: The ever accurate Wikipedia!
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