In the United States, there will be a celebration of Memorial Day on the same weekend that the church calendar invites us to reflect on the Holy Trinity.

Living overseas in Germany, watching and reading how my country of origin and the one that my husband defends in his daily work, it all feels impossible. It feels like everything is crumbling and it is hard to know what to claim in these days so that when it came to write something about Psalm 29 for the Living Psalms Project of the United Church of Christ I clung to the request in those last few lines. A vision of peace without any illustration but one I pray is so wide and deep that it can grow into something that will contain every bit of brokenness in the Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Detroit and. I don’t know how to find the strength that is needed for that kind of peace within myself but I hope that the vast mystery of the Trinity can provide what I cannot summon on my own.

So I went out of order and skipped to the end of the psalm to allow that prayer to help me to hear the Holy Trinity’s vibrato in every thunderclap and crashing wave. In the bellowing of animals and the moaning of our forests, I’m listening for that strength that will help me to keep believing that peace is possible. I want to keep fighting but I also don’t want to believe that God is responsible for everything that happens. I want there to be more that we find in God as we try to imagine this vision of peace just as I want there to be more that we can find within ourselves.

My riff on Psalm 29 can be found here on Living Psalms as well as in the words below.

We ask you, Eternal One, for strength
to hear your voice in every powerful force
in this world full of chaos and catastrophe.

We skip to the end 
because we are not 
so sure we want to give you
credit for all that is happening.

We ask you, Eternal One, for strength
not give up on the gift of your peace
and to find the courage to listen 
through the storm.

With every boom and crash,
call us to greater attention. 
Let us find more to ascribe 
to your holy name in
every strike and flood
that causes us to quake.

We need to skip to the end
to ask you, Eternal One, for strength 
to discover again that you 
are beyond all that we might 
ascribe to you. Give us this gift of peace.

Blessings to you in claiming this peace, dear one.