Oh God, don’t judge me.

This poem playfully reverses the psalmist’s stance in Psalm 26 while attempting to stay as close as possible to the original imagery and structure of the psalm. Rabbi Kleinbaum has been telling us this from the start: if you don’t know what else to say about the psalm, just try to rewrite it. Take out a thesaurus and go! Don’t fear “it’s not really my own voice” or “this is just an exercise in synonyms.” That is a truth that masks the fingerprints of your selections, your diction, your image.

I have been reading Mary Oliver’s The Rule for the Dance, so, naturally jumped at the chance to play with the deliciousness of meter, verse, and rhyme. Is it my favorite poem? No. But I enjoyed the process of reading closely with the psalmist. If you are looking for a way to meditate on the psalms, I do encourage you to do as Rabbi Kleinbaum taking one, line by line, and speaking it anew.

writingAlicia FowlerAugust 17, 2021writing, psalms, poetry, bibleComment

For the Father

Inspired by Psalm 21

writingAlicia FowlerMay 11, 2021writing, poetry, bible, psalmsComment

For you will not abandon me

On and off through the pandemic, I’ve turned to the Psalms either individually, or as part of the Morning Prayer. In December, I decided to join CBST Synagogue’s daily Psalm Text Study. For each Psalm we create our own offering, if we want, in reaction to what we felt, learned, or even hated in the Psalm. After sitting out two Psalms offerings, I delved into Psalm 16. I envied the Psalmist’s trust in redemption, in forgiveness, in a path. I wished I could hear the Psalmist’s invocation of God as a model. Instead, I only heard the funny ways those close to us use our goodness to harm us, how we harm in return, and these cycles of past harms try to dictate who we can be. Yet, trusting, as this Psalmist did, in Divine grace, I choose new life.

poetry, writingAlicia FowlerFebruary 24, 2021writing, poetry, religion, psalms, bibleComment

Gimme, gimme, gimme

Throughout the book of psalms, and really the whole Bible, we find oracles of lament, or hope, or woe. While the formats vary, generally, these include a invocation, a reckoning, and an acknowledgement of the ultimate goodness of God. In this oracle, I kept to the overall structure, while challenging our expectation of the format and tone.

writing, poetryAlicia FowlerFebruary 18, 2020religion, poetry, writing, funny, psalmsComment

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