Praise

"Praise the Lord..." Psalm 150

Each of the stanzas in the last psalm in the book of psalms in the Hebrew Bible begins with the simple phrase, "praise the Lord." No one can leave reflecting on that psalm asking, "now what was the main point again?"

This morning, I read this psalm at it left me unnerved. I didn't feel like praising God not because I don't like to worship or think worship is unimportant. It's just that I wasn't feeling that excited about God. It seemed like after I read it that the psalmist really wanted me to praise God...as if it was his need, not mine, to praise God and he wanted me to do what he wanted me to do. I resisted. I'm not overally dramatic with my worship. I've never raised my hands to the sky nor lost my self in awe of God's majesty. I'm Lutheran after all. I have closed my eyes to focus and I have been moved in worship to sing honestly and been moved to tears...all a sign of the Spirit at work in the service and in my life. But I've never shouted, "Praise the Lord..." as some Christians do. There isn't a thing wrong with that...it's just me.

Then God reminded me of the real issue in my life right now, why I felt unnerved by the psalm.
My experience this morning with the psalm was kind of like my experience watching a football game. Usually between the crowd and the action on the football field are the cheerleaders who enthusiastically encourage the crowd to join them in cheering for the team and rooting them on to victory. Unless one of the cheerleaders in the squad is a family member, friend, or someone we have a crush upon, most of us pay little attention to them. We focus on the game. The cheerleaders are nice, but not important to the game overall. No offense to cheerleaders. But most of us would also say if the cheerleaders were taken away from the game we would miss them.

I wonder if this is what I perceive worship and/or daily prayer with God to be like...a nice part of life, but essentially unnecessary to the important action happening in the "real world" of life on the field. I reality though it is God who creates this real world and I/we cannot seperate worship and life. Worship is life and life is worship...this afterall is the point of the Psalm, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord" (chickens, ostriches, infants, grandpas, aunts, men, women, boys, jaguars, etc). As we move and live we live in praise of God...by virtue of our existence. I was unnerved by the psalm because I began to seperate in my mind what is not intended to be seperated, worship and life.

Thank you Lord for the reminder to worship you in all things...whether writing this blog, talk on my cell, washing my son's dirty feet, riding a bike, or whatever. In all things, let your name be praised. Praise the Lord.

Thanks for reading.

Random clapper

Saturday night I sat behind the random clap starter. A great American hero Budweiser? Maybe not, but it was a unique experience. "Random clap starter?" you ask. It's the person who deems the point made by a speaker during a talk inspirational and/important and thus begins to clap and the rest of the group follows suit. In a crowd of 3000 people I sat behind that guy. During the talk on stage, the guy in front of me four times started the random clap. After the first time, his son, probably 20 years old looks over at him with awe and says, "Dad, you began the random clap." The guy didn't respond because he was too engrossed in the speaker's content. The wave of clapping was begun by a middle aged guy sitting near the back of thousands of people, right in front of me. Did I respond to his initiation? Yes, claps are like yawns, they are infectious.

The random clap that I'm waiting to experience is the one we see in movies, mostly in high school movies where the "nerd" turns hero. At that moment, always near the end of the movie, the cool kids who had previously been the arch nemesises (what is the plural of nemesis anyway), stand near the "nerd" after his/her moment of triumph. He/she has finally gained their respect and usually one guy starts clapping slowly and forcefully: clap..........clap.........clap........and then others begin to join in....clap...clap..clap...and the speeds picks up into a wave of clapping....clap, clap, clap, clap...I've never seen this in real life, but I've always wanted to be the one who starts the slow, forceful random clap.

Here's to you Mr Random Clap Starter...

Thanks for reading...