Over the coming days on our blog we will be hearing from some of the speakers who will be sharing at our Psalms Conference on June 11th. First up is Becce Bettridge, who will be leading the breakout session “New Conversations with an Old Friend” Click here to learn more and register for the conference.
There is something very special about a long-time friendship. I have known my friend, Leslie Mauermann, since she sat behind me in AP US History when we were both juniors at Arcadia High School in Arcadia, California. She was the first to know that I thought I was falling in love with my husband, Joe. She took me to church and shared her “white gloves,” a requirement (apparently) at Arcadia Presbyterian Church in 1968. We were in each other’s weddings. I wept on the phone with her when she filed for a divorce. She wept with me when I miscarried my first pregnancy. She knows me as well as anyone alive…and yet we continue to surprise and delight each other as we share how we are growing, and the myriad of ways God is showing up in our lives. Ours continues to be a comfortable, but evolving, friendship.
Many of us, who have known Psalm 23 for most of our lives, tend to come to it with practiced eyes. We know what it says, we have heard the familiar phrases before. But one of the joys of reading scripture, is that it has the ability to surprise and touch us in new ways each time we engage with it. Particularly, when we slow down and ponder the words meditatively. The writer of Lamentations reminds us, “God’s mercies are new every morning (3:23).
- How is God like my shepherd?
- Is God inviting me to rest in “green pastures” … stick my feet in a quite stream?
- When did God walk with me through the shadow of death? Did I know God was there as promised?
- Is God preparing a table for me right now? What’s God serving?
All these questions, and more, come to us quietly when we engage slowly and prayerfully with this Psalm.
In The Message, Eugene Peterson grabs our attention by translating the final verses of Psalm 23:
You serve me a six-course dinner
right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head;
my cup brims with blessing. Your beauty and love chase after me
every day of my life.
I’m back home in the house of God
for the rest of my life.
An old friend…seen through fresh eyes. Come join us as we welcome God to speak to us in a very personal, perhaps even new, way through this beloved psalm.
Becce has been a spiritual director since 2009 and holds certifications from both Monastery of the Risen Christ in Santa Barbara and Christian Formation & Direction Ministries in Seattle. She holds a BA in Communication and Literature, a Master of Biblical Studies, and has studied spiritual direction and dream work with the Haden Institute in North Carolina.