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Creative prayer: The Psalms and music

Lynne Baab • Thursday August 15 2019

The Psalms have often been called the prayer book of the Bible. They help us pray even when we don’t feel like it, and they teach us to pray in new ways. They bring us into God’s presence in whatever mood we’re feeling. They are honest, vivid and sometimes raw.

I wrote last week about my friend Steve Simon’s wonderful book, Holy Walks. In the book, Steve describes the way he memorizes psalms as he walks his dog and then prays the psalms he has memorized.

I want to suggest that music can be a wonderful accompaniment to praying the psalms. While walking,...

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Creative prayer: Walking and memorizing psalms

Lynne Baab • Thursday August 8 2019

I am so pleased that my good friend Steve Simon has written a book about the prayer practice that took his faith from his head to his heart. Steve memorizes psalms as he walks his dog, and then he prays those psalms. Holy Walks: Learning and Praying the Psalms is practical, humorous, and so helpful. He asked me to write the foreword, and here’s what I wrote.

Foreword for Holy Walks: Learning and Praying the Psalms. By Lynne Baab.

When I read a psalm—or listen to a sung version of a psalm—I am invited into something amazing and wonderful. The Psalms encourage me...

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Creative prayer nurtures stopping

Lynne Baab • Saturday August 3 2019

Have you ever thought about stopping as an important spiritual concept? I was in my late forties before that word had any traction for me.

I’ve written in many places about Dave’s and my experience of the Sabbath when we lived in Israel as young adults (see below for links). We brought our Sabbath practice home to Seattle and continued to embrace it enthusiastically for almost two decades before we started reflecting on what it meant and why it mattered.

When I began to write about the Sabbath, first as a chapter in my book on midlife, A Renewed Spirituality: Finding Fresh Paths...

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Creative prayer as remembering truth

Lynne Baab • Friday July 26 2019

The “impostor syndrome” is a name for those feelings when we doubt our accomplishments and wonder if we’ll be exposed as a fraud. A friend of mine sometimes feels this at work, and she recently asked for prayer that she wouldn’t let this thief steal her joy in her job.

Two years ago I wrote a post on this blog using a quotation from American journalist Fulton Oursler (1893-1952): “Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.” He’s using that same notion that we can allow certain thoughts and perspectives into our...

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