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I've enjoyed posting poetry series themed around the Christian year in the past couple of years (see "Poetry for Lent" and "Poetry for Easter"). I will continue that with a series called "Poetry for Ordinary Time." Ordinary time includes two sections of the church year between Christmastide and Lent and Easter and Advent. The word …
Continue reading "Malcolm Guite, “A Sonnet for All Saints Day” [Poetry for Ordinary Time]"
While the first three verses of Psalm 1 provide us with a description of God's blessing, the last three verses offer an alternative vision that is distressing. 4 Not so the wicked!They are like chaffthat the wind blows away.5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.6 …
Continue reading "When Blessing Atrophies [Psalm 1, part 5]"
Now look with me at Psalm 1, verse 3, we encounter the results of growth toward the full blessing of God. When our choose to walk into the way of God’s blessing, when we take steps with our environment for growth – our relationships and choices, and when we take in the essential food for …
Continue reading "The Full Blessing of God [Psalm 1, part 4]"
When Kelly and I were newly married we had a knack for killing the house plants we had in our apartment. One day, we saw one of our neighbors, an elderly woman named Elsie, digging a plant we had killed out of the dumpster. We watched as she took it back in her apartment, left …
Continue reading "The Key Nutrient of Blessing [Psalm 1, part 3]"
Let’s read the first verse of Psalm 1 again: Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wickedor stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers. There is an environment in which blessing takes root and the psalmist draws our attention to it with these three parallel phrases. Now, Hebrew …
Continue reading "The Environment of Blessing [Psalm 1, part 2]"
Matthew Erickson 