Monday, October 25, 2010

Psalm 13

Catching up a bit on long-overdue bits. Truth is, I lost what I had written and it's taken me since Feb. to find it!
Last January I went to a two week study on Psalms. On the day we looked at Psalm 13 we had some exercises to choose form. I took myself off to a quiet place for my meditation and thought about the psalm in relation to the fires in the Upper Murray area just before Christmas and sitting with a family while their farm burnt. I paraphrased the psalm .

How long, O Lord?
Will you forget forever?
Will you forget this land?

How many times must we bear devastation?
How many times do the elements take over our work
and throw us into desolation?

See our trees.
our frustration
our loss.

We have worked with your land.
We have cared for your earth.
We have tended your stock.

And it is gone
in conflagration.

We look for you in shoots of re-growth.
We trust in your to renew the earth.

Then we can sing your praises.

The same area has since experienced flooding.