Dearest dancing monks, artists, and pilgrims,
This Friday, May 22nd we welcome Wisdom Council member, spiritual director, and musician Dr. Richard Bruxvoort Colligan for a retreat on The Psalms and a Gloriously Disrupted Life. During the retreat Richard will guide us in an immersion of his favorite part of the Hebrew scriptures.
Here is an excerpt from Richard’s new book on the psalms:
The psalms of the Hebrew Bible sing of a rich, complicated life. The psalmists– the people who wrote the psalms—were creative, open-hearted musicians who composed and sang with their community. From their lyrics, we can see that they clearly struggled with God and wrestled with their place in the world. Their praises soar, their blues ache.
Welcome to 150 affirmations for your life, set to ancient music for which we have only a handful of clues than can help us imagine what it sounded like.
To be clear: The Psalter is not a make you-feel-better-with-a-Bible-verse project, and it was never intended to be. The psalms will absolutely not tell us to get over our struggles and move on. The Psalms will ask us to, as the psalmists sing in Hebrew, yachal—to wait, hope, and stay—until our experience has ripened and our humanity has been honored. After all, our ancestors of faith were called Israel, a word that means to have contended, or wrestled, with God, the Heart of Life.
In our desire for happiness, the psalmists connect us to generations of joy. When we’re angry, they affirm that rage is often absolutely appropriate; they will not talk us down from it. And if, like me, you live with depression or anxiety; know that the psalmists understand us too.
The contours of the examined life can be mapped by the stars of individual psalms. When we view them together as the five-book Psalter, a sky full of constellations emerges. Not right away. Your eyes need to adjust to notice the particulars given the enormity of the sense and scope of the sky. Then—look! The Milky Way. The Big Dipper. Orion’s belt, and then your own future in the sky—much like the number of Abraham’s descendants (Genesis 15:5)—become clear as your imagination gets its bearings.
“Music makes an altar out of our ears,” writes composer W. A. Mathieu. And all the psalms are music.
(Reprinted with permission from Dangerous Songs: The Psalms and a Gloriously Disrupted Life by Richard Bruxvoort Colligan. Copyright © 2026 Broadleaf Books.)
Join us this Friday to expand your life with the psalms through teaching, singing, and meditation. You will be invited to sketch, doodle, journal, and create psalm-inspired poetry. No prior study of the psalms is required and all are welcome.
With great and growing love,
Christine
Christine Valters Paintner, OblSB, PhD, REACE
