Let everyone find their voice: re-imagining the Psalms for worship and devotion

Abstract

Here is a book by a Church of Scotland minister immersed both in the Psalter and in the contemporary world and experiences of Christian disciples, living, working, engaging in acts of public worship, and spending time alone in meditation and prayer. In this book Lezley Stewart is re-imagining the Psalms for public worship and for private devotion. In so doing she communicates her passion for accessible and meaningful worship that connects life and faith together. The Psalter is a rich resource that captures and expresses the full range of human experience and human emotion coming face-to-face with the creator God and with the complexities and contradictions of living in the creator’s universe that is viewed as good, fallen, and redeemed. The individual Psalms were crafted in a different age and against a different tapestry of thought from that we inhabit today. Lezley Stewart is not offering fresh translation of these ancient Psalms but re-imagining them in a creative and inspirational way. Here are newly crafted Psalms grounded firmly in the tradition, and organised according to six main themes: refuge, created, lament, centre, pathway, and refreshment. My attention was caught most powerfully by the section on lamentation, drawing on Psalms 22, 55, and 77. Here we are reminded that lamentation is a release of the deepest and most profound emotion before God. Nothing is off limits in open exchange with God. True lament can be life enriching; but Lezley Stewart is well aware that those who facilitate lament must also be pastorally sensitive to how people might respond. Here is an enriching resource for public worship and for personal devotion.