Fooling with Scripture podcast, Ep 3 -- Angry Praying

Check out episode 3 of the Fooling with Scripture podcast. This one is called "Angry Praying," and it's a follow-up on a concept I played with last week, "the revelation is in the distraction."

In this episode, we'll be taking a look one of my favorite psalms, Psalm 139. If you're not familiar with it, you can read it in full by clicking here. I could say a lot about the psalms -- they are one of my favorite things to talk about! For now, though, here are a few resources if you want to read more.

The modern classic in Psalm interpretation is Walter Brueggemann's The Message of the Psalms (Fortress Press, 1985), in which he introduces the concept of psalms of orientation, disorientation, and new orientation. Unsurprisingly, though, my favorite resource for understanding the psalms is a book by my professor Denise Dombkowski Hopkins called Journey Through the Psalms (Chalice Press, 2002), which includes creative ways to engage with the texts. She's also coming out with a new commentary on the psalms which re-imagines them as prayers of women from the Hebrew Bible. 

Which reminds me...

I realized as I was listening back over the recording that I kept referring to the author/speaker of the psalm as "he." I think it's because I was purposefully projecting my own experience, including my gender, into the psalm. But, while it's probably true that the composers of the texts were mainly men, the psalms are supposed to represent the full voice of the gathered community. So you could just as easily say "she" or "they" or any other pronoun you choose, and (I would argue) be on point theologically. Whoever you are, the voice of the psalms includes and reflects you.

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