Friday Thoughts - Take it or Leave it

I had some time so I thought I'd blog again. Here are my random thoughts for the week :)

It's a beautiful sunny day outside! The snow we got over the weekend melted completely on Tuesday night so now we are back to green again. In some ways I don't mind, but I do really want to experience some serious snow this winter.

This week our speaker talked about the Psalms. The first class was on Biblical poetry and what to look for, such as imagery and parallelism, and also the three main forms: Lament, Praise, and Thanksgiving. He was very good at reviewing those concepts throughout the week so that I can still remember them! One of his main points was that the psalms were not meant to be read individually but as a part of a complete book; he used the different literary elements to show how different psalms were connected and how they had been arranged in a certain order, sometimes for emphasis, and sometimes as smaller literary units which should be studied as a whole. Most of the rest of his lectures focused on the theme that the Psalms are all messianic, pointing to Jesus, in one way or another. I'm not sure I agree with all his points, but he definitely challenged me to read the psalms in a new way and to look into it further.

As a response to studying Psalms, we were given a class period to write our own psalms in one of the three main forms. Then last night we had a singing and sharing time where we sang songs taken almost directly from a particular psalm and were given the opportunity to read our own psalms out loud if we wanted to. The point of reading them was to praise God in community and to pray along with each other. Here's the psalm that I wrote, and I hope as you read it you will praise God, too.

Let all that is in me praise the Lord.
  Let joy in him well up within me!
For my God is a mind-blowing artist.
  His awe-inspiring work is on display for all to see.
The Lord paints a picture across the night sky,
  using countless stars and galaxies to create a masterpiece.
He calls them out one by one, the first teasing hints visible at twilight;
  the whole stunning canvass arrayed by midnight.
He turns invisible gases into beautiful points of light.
  He transforms falling rocks into streaks of light.
At sunrise and sunset his palette know no rival
  as his brush, the sun, renders the clouds in stunning oranges and pinks and reds
    on a canvass of deepest blue.
Only a Creator like Yahweh would dream of using water droplets and dirt particles
    to create something amazing.
  Only he would take the commonplace and make a masterpiece.
His creativity is not only displayed in the skies above,
  I can see his handiwork all around me.
He dusts the trees with snow
  and covers the grass and paths with tiny snowflakes,
  creating a winter wonderland of breath-taking beauty.
In a night he melts it all away to reveal the green of life beneath
  or brown of life awaiting the call of warmth to wake.
Each tree, each leaf, each blade of grass is an intricate system.
  Such complexity can only be planned by a mind
    of incomprehensible wisdom and understanding - my Lord.
Thank you for creating such beauty.
  Thank you for giving us eyes to see and minds to appreciate the work of your hands.
Let all that is in me praise the Lord.
  Let joy in him well up within me!

Last night after lecture we had dorm life. We split into six teams and competed in short events: one blind-folded person fed another blind-folded person yoghurt, speeding folding laundry, a crazy hairstyle in six minutes, push-up competition, the classic raw egg on a spoon race, and 'bobbing' for bilar candy alternating between bowls of flour and water. It was a lot of fun!

This afternoon I'm planning to go for a walk (how could I not with the weather so beautiful) and then visit Trista and Hazel and Huxley (the twins). I hope your day is as sunny as mine!