Monday, March 30, 2009

Writing Your Own Psalm

The dictionary says psalm means this:
noun
1. a sacred song or hymn. (Becky's favorite)
2. any of the songs, hymns, or prayers contained in the Book of Psalms.
3. a metric version or paraphrase of any of these.
4. a poem of a similar nature.


We all know about King David's psalm in the Bible and those who read The Book of Mormon know about Nephi's psalm in 2 Nephi ch 4: 16-35. But what about writing your own psalm?
Last Wednesday at our single adult institute or religion class we had the opportunity to do that. What a superb idea! Sister Bateman gave us the outline:
v.16-19 Negative feelings about self
v. 20-23 Know that the Lord will help
v.27 Why do I sin?
v. 28-30 Encourage self
v.31-33 Pray for help
v.34-35 Trust in the Lord- I can do it!

She gave us some time to get down some ideas, sentences, etc and let us share. One person who shared their psalm was almost poetic. I got specific in my list of negative feelings and sins, which I didn't share. I haven't yet put it down in poem format. I wish I could. My patriarchal blessing talks about poetry. I wrote a poem on my mission that is very good(not sure where that is, need to find it), and when I was teaching poetry in H.S. words would come to me, but I was driving in the car. I didn't get it down on paper.

I wanted to share this beautiful idea with you. Maybe you'll write one, maybe you won't, maybe you'll just see Nephi's psalm differently and that is good in and of itself. If you do write one and you feel like you can share, please do.

3 comments:

  1. Becky - I love reading your blog! You have such great ideas and thoughtful posts. Thank you for sharing your good ideas, testimony and learning experiences. You are an amazing person and I love you!

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  2. Thanks! I always like when random blog readers comment on mine :) I like your blogs, very cool :)

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