Friday, May 18, 2007

Eating the words of God

Dorothee Soelle said that you should eat a Psalm for breakfast every day.

In the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Episcopal and Catholic and Orthodox and many other churches, there are Psalms, of course, as there are (in greater number) in the various monastic offices.

But one Psalm will do.

In fact --I have written this before-- the words of Morning Prayer are often too much for me. If I am alone (the group prayer experience is different) I have to break up MP if I say it, because I just want to chew on the Psalm for a while.

This morning's scriptures in the Daily Office offered a related story:

I looked, and a hand was stretched out to me, and a written scroll was in it. [God] spread it before me; it had writing on the front and on the back, and written on it were words of lamentation and mourning and woe.

[God] said to me, O mortal, eat what is offered to you; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and [God] gave me the scroll to eat. [God] said to me, Mortal, eat this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it. Then I ate it; and in my mouth it was as sweet as honey.


******** Ezekiel 2:9-3:3

4 comments:

Apostle In Exile said...

At last! Someone else who finds morning and evening prayer often too "noisy" and word-filled to be digestible without lots of pauses and meditation time. Welcome to the family!

[Kirstin, who pointed me to your blog, says I have to explain to you that I am not some strange bearded stalker--just an apostle in the exile of the Diocese of San Joaquin--where I don't dare to admit that I'm (hush) one of those disgusting creatures called a "woman" who hopes to be ordained to the priesthood, fellow cat person (sometimes, judging by the fur on me, more cat than person), and the one responsible for keeping her safely insane in the
hallways of seminary. If you doubt this last comment--see her posting from Easter 2006 about the Kitsch liturgy!]

Kirstin said...

Hi Jane, said "liturgy" is here.

Jane R said...

ROFLOL!!

Kirstin said...

::grin::