We are "christians," or at least we call ourselves that.
The most important thing about us christians is that we talk to God.
We are not the only people in the world who talk to God. But we can't worry about those others. They have to deal with God in their own ways, and God will deal with them in God's own ways. We've got enough trouble in our own back yard--we don't need to control everybody else. God can take care of that--of them. We say that God loves what God has made. God made them. End of discussion.
So we talk to God.
We do that because we know that God listens. We don't just think that God listens. We know it. That's what faith means.
But talking to someone else is an open-ended trip. It's open-ended in two ways. First of all, we never know how it will go. We don't control it. And second, we don't expect it to end.
But isn't that how it goes with other people in our lives? From our first moments, we never know how things will go, and we have no idea how the talk will end, if it will ever end.
There is a widespread walking away from religion in our "western" world. It is only natural for us christians to ask why that is happening. I think it is because we of the western world have become so engrossed in "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage" (to quote Luke 17:32) that we don't have time to think about God, much less to think about having a conversation with God. Our western world is not all that unique in human history.
Since so many of us don't think about God, we naturally have forgotten how to talk to God, or how to listen to God.
I found myself in that situation. Or, to be more precise, I keep finding myself in that situation. It is strange. I was raised in a pious family, spent my student years in pious schools, and have lived my adult life as a professional religious person. And still I keep finding myself wondering if I am really speaking to God. I'm never sure. So I keep on trying to be aware of who I'm talking to.
Here is where I have latched on to that ancient prayer book called the "psalter."
A psalter is a book containing "psalms," which are prayers meant to be be recited or sung as poetry. It's an old book, at least two thousand years old. My christian forebears have used it all the years since Jesus Christ walked the earth, and Jesus himself surely used it. There was a Latin saying "In David, Christus." David was supposed to have composed the psalms. The saying says that if you know the psalms, you know Christ.
If you know the psalms, you also know a lot besides Christ. You find yourself immersed in several hundred years of Jewish history, with all of its warts and wounds exposed. The psalms teach you to talk to God, but they also teach you about the messiness of being human, and how you are not likely to be any less messy than the men and women who prayed them before you.
The meanings of some passages are lost forever, but isn't that true of our own stories? Sometimes a psalm scolds us, but don't we need scolding ever so often? I used to be turned off by all the talk in the psalms of "enemies," but life has taught me that there are people in my world who can qualify as my enemy. They mean me no good. I'd rather not face them, but maybe I should face them more often and more openly. Conflict is not evil. It's uncomfortable, even painful sometimes, but if we do it with love, it is life-giving. They used to say, on Marriage Encounter weekends, "Sometimes you have to fight, but hold hands while you're fighting."
My church (Roman Catholic they call it) has surrounded the psalms with the story of Jesus. They call it the "church year." It begins with Advent and Christmas, which recall the beginnings of his story, continues with Lent and Easter, and spends the rest of the year reflecting on the rest of Jesus's life. As I do this year after year, I begin to see how my own life can become patterned after his life. That includes his death, which, as I approach my ninetieth birthday, is more than likely for me not too far in the future.
And all the while, as day after day I take up my book of psalms (which today is on my Kindle--blessed be some technology), I feel close to all those women and men and even children who have gone before me, with all their warts and wounds.
The psalms help me talk to God, and even, every so often, to listen to God talk back.
