Psalm Meditation 1126 ¶Second Sunday After Epiphany ¶January 16, 2022 ¶Psalm 100 1 Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. 2 Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing. 3 Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. 5 For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. (NRSV) ¶There is something really scary about strong emotions. It isn’t the emotion itself, it is the reactions others have to our emotions that makes them frightening. For example, when we are filled with joy, there will be someone ready to ask, ‘What are you so happy about?’ If it were a sincere question we could answer them honestly, however the question often drips with sarcasm. By their tone of voice we are aware that joy is unwelcome in their presence. Given the choice between skipping away with giddy glee or suppressing our joy, we suppress our joy for the sake of their comfort. ¶I hear my inner psychologist telling me that I do not need to protect anyone from my joy, however there are other voices reminding me that I do well to take the words and feelings of others into account as I express myself. So, caught up in the confusion of advice, we keep our joy to ourselves and resent the bitterness the sarcasm around us engenders within us. We see ourselves as living out the intent of the psalm without having to deal with the challenges that people thrown down before us when we experience and express any strong emotion. ‘As long as I feel it, I don’t really have to express it.’ ¶It is good to find a safe place to make a joyful noise to the Lord, so that we don’t wilt away or explode from lack of expressing the joy we feel as we enter the presence of God. Living in a constant undercurrent of joy in the presence and gifts of God is a good thing. Knowing that we have a way and a place to express our joy with full-throated enthusiasm is a great thing. “For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” ¶January 10, 2022 ¶LCM lcrsmanifold@att.net http://psalmmeditations.blogspot.com/