For Your Prayer
I enjoyed putting this together a couple of weeks ago, for the Lenten devotional series of St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Williamsburg, VA: One of my heroes, Dorothy Day, once wrote: “My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the Psalms.” It’s a good way to begin a morning! And, so, I gravitate towards Psalm 27, which is appointed for this day, and find that it is full of prompts for prayer. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” For your prayer: Do you believe these words? Who are you afraid of? Fear is rampant in our culture. Fear mutates into anger and closed-off intolerance, which becomes polarization and division. We become likely to identify enemies, adversaries. Sure enough, that’s happened with the Psalm writer. In verses two, six, 11 and 12: “When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh – my adversaries and foes – they stumble