Throughout the Lenten season, we are adjusting our Chanting of the Psalms to seven days a week so that as a community we can more deeply immerse in the invitation of the season.
Through this seven-day-a-week practice, we invite you to walk with us in hope and to remember that fear, danger, uncertainty, exhaustion, and broken-heartedness are not the final word. As Rumi says, “Our Wisdom Path is no caravan of despair.” So we plant seeds of trust, mercy, compassion and grace even as we look unflinchingly into the mouth of this heartless winter world. We feed and nurture those seeds of hope with our work and our suffering, knowing that that even from a frozen wilderness, something new can grow. As Albert Camus said, “Spring cannot fail us.”
The psalmists knew this, too. In 150 stories that lead us through every emotion and event that the human heart can hold, 149 times the psalms refuse to let fear or hopelessness be the way the story ends. Chanting the psalms helps the heart remember what Cynthia calls mystical hope, a hope that does not depend on external circumstances, but blooms green and verdant, warmed in the mercy and steadiness and trustworthiness of God. And even psalm 88, which ends in despair, is full of the knowing that even in the hardest times, even in moments that seem like a descent into hell, we are not abandoned or forgotten. God is there. Mercy is there. We simply need to hold out our arms to join that stream of never ending grace.
Please join us during this season of Lent to go deeper into the rhythm of the Psalms. Our individual voices contribute to the whole and meet winter with seeds of hope that feeds everything.
Event Details
When: 7-days-a week beginning February 18th through Easter Sunday, April 5th from 8:30-9:00 am ET
Where: Online. Join Zoom: Link Here Meeting ID: 810 8061 0840 Password: Chant
Cost: Free