In a world where the powers that be continuously turn a blind eye to injustice, where it is far more common for people of faith to sing pious platitudes about inevitable progress, casting themselves (ourselves) as protagonists in a divinely authored hero’s journey, the psalms of disorientation show us a different way. These songs of personal and communal lament demand a reckoning with the painful realities all around us of “disequilibrium, incoherence, and unrelieved asymmetry” (Walter Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms, 51).
These psalms are essential texts for the work of justice, for they lead us to see the world as it is, not as the small comforts and the fleeting privilege some of us enjoy lead us to believe. As Brueggemann puts it, “They lead us into dangerous acknowledgment of how life really is. They lead us into the presence of God where everything is not polite and civil. they cause us to think unthinkable thoughts and utter unutterable words” (Brueggemann, 53).
Throughout July, we will read four Psalms of Disorientation, reflecting on how their message might speak to us today.
- Week 1: Psalm 73
- Week 2: Psalm 13
- Week 3: Psalm 88
- Week 4: Psalm 109
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Seek Faith, Learn Justice, Together in Community