Laments for Lent – He Remembers that We Are Dust.

Laments for Lent, Praying with the Psalmists 0

Psalm 103:8-18 (New International Version):

The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love.
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.
But from everlasting to everlasting
the Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children —
with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts.

Okay, I’m cheating a little here. I’m beginning a series called Laments for Lent (Here’s my Intro post.) – and I’m beginning with Psalm 103, which is not a Lament, but a Psalm of Praise.

But this is my post for Ash Wednesday. (Yes, I know it’s happening Wednesday and Lent hasn’t started yet – but on Wednesday I’ll be going straight from work to singing in the choir for an Ash Wednesday service, so I thought I’d go ahead and post today.) And on Ash Wednesday, we think about how we came from dust and will return to dust. We also examine ourselves and repent of our sins.

And I want to encourage everyone: The Lord remembers that we are dust. We’re not surprising God with our failures and foibles. The Lord has compassion on us.

One of my favorite writers is the Irish mystic Lorna Byrne, and she says that in God’s eyes, we all are children. This matches what Psalm 103 teaches. When a toddler learning to walk stumbles, do good parents scold and berate them? No! God is a Father who has compassion on us, with love higher than the heavens.

I’m also using this passage as an introduction to Psalms. For the rest of Lent, I’m going to be looking at Laments and Psalms of Confession, but first let me point out the parallelism in Psalms. Hebrew poetry, rather than rhyming, takes the form of parallelism – a wonderfully translatable form. And yes, there are nuances in the original language, but speaking generally, ideas are repeated and lines mirror each other. Look at the parallelism in these lines:

He will not always accuse;
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.

In the next verses, two lines are reflected at a time:

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Psalm 103 became my favorite 20 years ago after I found out my then-husband was seeing another woman behind my back. (I didn’t know then that it was actually an affair.) You’d think that would have filled him with shame, and it probably did. But his reaction was to tell me all the ways I was a terrible wife and he was “forced” to look elsewhere for “friendship.” And that I did not deserve his love or affection.

And the sad part of the story is that I bought it. Mind you, almost all his accusations were based in truth – he listed off things I’d done or said in anger over 18 years of marriage. Never mind if I hadn’t intended them as harsh as the way they’d come out. Never mind if I’d apologized. I was told that I was a terrible person and not even a good friend to my husband and didn’t deserve love.

And I was used to believing my husband. I thought he loved me. I knew I was a lovable person because he loved me. And he hadn’t clued me in on how hurt he was by the things I’d done and said until it all came out after I found out about him seeing this “friend” behind my back.  So I believed him that my terrible actions and words had destroyed my own marriage and hurt the one I loved most.

But in my devastation, thank God I came across this passage.

God will not always accuse.
The Lord will not harbor his anger forever.

I was told I didn’t deserve love. Well,
the Lord does not treat me as my sins deserve.

And now, twenty years later, happily single – sometimes I see friends agonizing over their own shortcomings. It seems like they think God is like my ex-husband, parceling out love only if we deserve it.

But no, God is like a good Father, having compassion on God’s children far greater than an earthly parent’s love.

And the Lord remembers that we are dust. Our mistakes don’t surprise God the way they do us. They don’t make God lash out in anger. Instead, like a Father or like a Mother, the Lord shows us compassion and helps us do better.

So those are my thoughts for Ash Wednesday and receiving the ashes.

In the upcoming series, for the remaining six Sundays of Lent plus Easter, I’m going to look at each of the parts of a Lament. I’ve made an acronym to help remember them:

A – Address to God
C – Complaint
C – Confession of Trust
E – Entreaty
S – Sureness of Help
S – Subsequent Praise

I also – always – am about encouraging folks to write their own psalms. For this introductory week, think about trying a little parallelism in your prayers. Pray a request, and then think of another way to say it. If nothing else, it helps slow things down and makes your prayer more meditative.

I’m going to close by writing a short sample lament. Wanting to keep it short, I will not go into as much detail as many of the Psalms do. I’m thinking of all my neighbors and friends who are federal employees facing chaos, so here’s a lament for them, including the seven parts.

Lord, I come before you
as a child to a compassionate parent.
I know that you hear;
I believe that you listen.

Lord, our government is in chaos;
norms and rules are being ignored.
People are losing their jobs willy-nilly,
with no notice
with no severance
with no chance to prepare.
Lives are being upended
and people don’t know where to turn.
Even worse is all the good work
being disregarded and denigrated
as if hard work serving others
is all a grift to steal from the very people they serve.

Father, we do trust you.
If you see the sparrow fall,
then you know about each life
facing the difficulties of job loss
or the withdrawal of benefits
depended on to get out of a hard space.

Lord, we ask you to act!
We ask you to work for justice!
Help those who have been wrongfully terminated,
those who have been abandoned,
those wrongfully detained and deported,
and all others harmed by recent actions.

Christ, there’s so much,
we don’t even know how to respond.
Send your Spirit and show us
what we can do
to speed the cause of justice,
to help the oppressed,
to call the mighty to account,
to aid the destitute.

Lord, the arc of the universe
does bend toward justice;
the path of history
does show oppressors losing.

We will rejoice with each victory,
big or small.
And we will watch to see
all the ways you will bring triumph out of loss.

May it be so, Lord. Thank you that though we came from dust, your compassion for us never fails.

Laments for Lent

Laments for Lent, Praying with the Psalmists 0

The season of Lent is almost here.

And this year it’s coming at a rough time in northern Virginia. A large proportion of the population here is federal workers and federal contractors. And they’re suddenly losing their jobs, or at the very least losing their coworkers. Many who aren’t in that category themselves have family members who are. Every single person who lives in this area knows people affected by this chaos and turmoil.

I didn’t grow up in churches that observed Lent, but even the more conservative church I joined eighteen years ago had an Ash Wednesday service, and now it’s an important part of services at the United Methodist Church I attend. As I understand it, Lent is a time of self-reflection and confession in preparation for Easter.

And it seems like a good time to think about Laments.

I wrote a book called Praying with the Psalmists that takes the reader through the entire book of Psalms in 12 weeks. My full manuscript for that book is currently being considered by an agent – so instead of dithering and spinning my wheels as to what she might be thinking about it, I’ve decided to start on my next book. And I decided a wonderful follow-up will be Laments for Lent. [I know that title won’t necessarily attract readers – most people aren’t as enamored with Laments as I am. So I’m trying to come up with a good subtitle – if you have any ideas, post them in the comments!]

I love the Laments in Psalms, which may come as a surprise to folks not familiar with them. Here’s the thing: Laments prove that God can handle our pain. Laments prove that we don’t have to always wear a happy face when we approach God in prayer.

But besides that, Laments are surprisingly faith-building, surprisingly full of trust. The Laments in Scripture follow a specific form – and the form itself includes reminders that, though times are hard, we really do trust God. In fact, a large number finish off by visualizing how happy they’re going to be when God acts.

So – Laments seem all the more appropriate for this time we find ourselves in. So much is going wrong, it’s hard to keep track of it all. And going through the parts of a Lament during this Lenten season I hope will help me bring the troubles before God and encourage me at the same time. And I hope that sharing these thoughts will help others, too.

My plan for the book Laments for Lent is a smaller scope than Praying with the Psalmists. I’m thinking it will be a series of daily devotionals for the 40 days of Lent plus Sundays, and each day we’ll look at one of the Laments or Psalms of Confession. And each week we’ll look at a different part of a Lament and think about opening our own hearts to God.

For the blog series, I’m not going to post daily, but I would like to post weekly. I’m thinking sort of a rough draft/initial plan for what the book will be about, sketching out the themes I’ll hit with each week’s devotionals. I’m going to try to post every Sunday during Lent, and by the end I should have an idea if I’ve really got enough to say for a book. I’m also hoping I’ll get plenty of comments and feedback to direct that project.

And this introductory post has gotten longer than I intended – I was going to lead right into an Ash Wednesday post. But why don’t I leave this as an introduction and I’ll come back for Ash Wednesday, beginning with words from Psalms.

It’s Time for a Lament.

Praying with the Psalmists 5

I’ve written an as-yet-unpublished book on Psalms, Praying with the Psalmists, about the different types of Psalms and how we can use them as patterns for our own prayer. It might sound odd, but one of my favorite forms is the Lament. It’s also the most common form, and Laments show that we can bring all of our troubles to God, that we don’t have to always put on a happy face when we come before God. But also, the form of a Lament reminds us that we can trust God.

And I’m not going to let the name of the current president appear in this blog, but gracious – how much havoc he has caused in the first weeks of his second time in office. I live in northern Virginia, where a large percentage of the population is federal workers, and anxiety fills the air here. My small group and I tried to make a list of things to pray about, to try to be less overwhelmed, and even that was supremely difficult and gets added to every day.

So – I tried to be more general and come up with five general things to pray about daily, so I can tick them off on my fingers. Here’s what I came up with:

1) For people who have been and are being harmed by these actions, that this harm will be quickly mitigated.

This includes federal workers being fired, and others trying to work with smaller staff.
It includes transgender people losing civil rights and access to medication.
It includes families of those killed in the plane crashes after FAA personnel were fired.
It includes people being imprisoned in concentration camps because they tried to come here for refuge.

2) For forces of good that have been stopped, that the good will quickly start up again.

This includes everyone across the world helped by USAID.
It includes everyone helped by the Department of Education.
It includes everyone helped by the Consumer Protection Board.
It includes everyone who uses Medicaid.
It includes funding for cancer research, and so many other programs and research I don’t know about.

3) For the Constitution and the rule of law to be upheld.

Yes, we’re in a Constitutional crisis. It’s clearly illegal to fire Inspectors General without giving notice to Congress. Judges have already ruled against the administration in more than one case, and they’re talking about ignoring the judges. If they get away with that, they are ignoring the Constitution and grabbing the power of a dictator. I don’t want to live in a dictatorship.

This includes prayer for our elected officials, that they will do everything in their own power to uphold the Constitution.

4) For protection from further harm.

Firing air traffic controllers and replacing people with AI? What could go wrong? Refusing to allow the CDC to put out information when Avian flu is mutating? Allowing a rogue foreigner and an agency not approved by Congress to access all our personal data with access to Treasury computers? Talking about eliminating Social Security and Medicare? Talking about attacking other countries based on whims? Building prison camps in El Salvador? There’s so much, it’s hard to know what to worry about next.  Please protect us all, Lord!

5) For evil actions to come to light.

The administration has their own propaganda department, courtesy of right-wing “news” sources. And they are practiced in casting blame – trying to blame the recent plane crashes on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, with absolutely no evidence, for example. The rogue department that’s decimating the rest of the government has been avoiding any transparency. May that not stand. May the truth come out. May what is whispered in the dark be spoken in the daylight.

So – those are what I want to pray about. Now I’m going to write a short lament to do so – but consider all the listing above to be part of the lament.

Here are the parts of a lament:

A – Address to God
C – Complaint
C – Confession of Trust
E – Entreaty
S – Sureness of Help
S – Subsequent Praise

A Lament for a Time of Chaos

Help us, Lord!
We come before you asking that you hear our prayers.
Hear our prayer;
listen to our cry.

Lord, so many people are being harmed
by this administration’s callous actions.
Folks are illegally losing their jobs;
others are losing their civil rights.
And people who believed they could better their lives in America
are being imprisoned without recourse.

And Father, I didn’t realize how much good our country did
until it got stopped.
Fill in the gaps of helping cancer research
disease prevention
mitigating poverty
Alzheimer’s research
and so much more.
Help those who rely on Medicaid,
who need student loans,
who rely on grants for funding
to get by while it’s paused.

Lord, wicked men are ignoring our laws,
they’re blatantly breaking laws specifically written to keep this country a democracy.
They’re flaunting their power
and saying, “Who can stop us?”

Lord, we know that you do see.
We believe that you do have power.
And I’m sorry that my trust
sounds so feeble right about now.
Will you indeed act?

Arise, O Lord!
Do not forget the marginalized.
Let the wicked fall into the pit they’ve dug.
Let their feet be caught in the net they have hidden.
May all their wickedness come to light.
May their power grabs be their downfall.
And please, protect your children
from further harm.
Show us how to resist.
Cut through the chaos and guide us
what to do to help preserve our republic.

Lord God, I do believe that the arc of the universe
bends toward justice.
Please speed up that bending!
Let this setback to justice, mercy, and truth be short.

And when it all comes crashing down for these wicked people,
our hearts will be light
and there will be rejoicing in the streets.

May that day come soon, Lord God!

***

Okay, that’s what I came up with on the spot. I will be praying my five prayer requests daily for the forseeable future. May the Lord have mercy on us.

Wisdom Psalms and Wicked Rulers

Praying with the Psalmists 0

Psalm 58:1-2 —
Do you rulers indeed speak justly?
Do you judge people with equity?
No, in your heart you devise injustice,
and your hands mete out violence on the earth.

It seemed appropriate that last week, as our president-elect was threatening war against Greenland, Canada, and Panama, that I was having my quiet times in Psalm 58. [I have a somewhat random method of choosing where in Scripture to focus my quiet times. It has to do with my schedule of reviewing what I’ve memorized. Psalm 58 was up next.]

What I thought about was that the world has had unjust rulers as long as we have had rulers. And God’s people have brought that before God in prayer just as long.

As it happens, shortly before the election, I was having my quiet times in Malachi 3, which definitely made me think of one candidate:

“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.

Wisdom Psalms are all about how it’s good for you to follow God – but they also grapple (notably in Psalm 73, but other places as well) with how sometimes the wicked prosper. And they absolutely, definitely pray that the wicked will experience their own downfall and the consequences of their unjust actions. It is right and good to pray against those who do the things above. And I firmly believe that is ultimately good for our nation to be against injustice, evil, and oppression.

In this post, rather than write my own psalm, I’m going to use words directly from Scripture to pray for our new administration.

Before I begin, let me say that I am completely against political violence. But I am absolutely for the metaphorical lions having their fangs torn out. (See the difference?) Lest anyone misunderstand, again, let me say that I am taking these words directly from Scripture.

Let me also say that when I see “poor and needy,” I’m thinking of transgender folks whose rights may get stripped away, and of people currently eligible for Medicaid and Social Security recipients who may lose benefits. To anyone marginalized whose situation may be made worse.  To the extent that doesn’t happen – well, these prayers are against any who oppress the poor and needy, who make life harder for them.

Let’s begin with Psalm 58:6-7–

Break the teeth in their mouths, O God;
Lord, tear out the fangs of those lions!
Let them vanish like water that flows away;
when they draw the bow, let their arrows fall short.

And then verses from Psalm 10 come to mind:

In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises.
He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.
In his pride the wicked man does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.
His ways are always prosperous;
your laws are rejected by him;
he sneers at all his enemies.
He says to himself, “Nothing will ever shake me.”
He swears, “No one will ever do me harm.”
His mouth is full of lies and threats;
trouble and evil are under his tongue….
He says to himself, “God will never notice;
he covers his face and never sees.”

Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.
Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
“He won’t call me to account”?
But you, O God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked man;
call the evildoer to account for his wickedness
that would not otherwise be found out.

From Psalm 7:14-16–
Whoever is pregnant with evil
conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment.
Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out
falls into the pit they have made.
The trouble they cause recoils on them;
their violence comes down on their own heads.

And let’s dip into Proverbs, for Proverbs 21:13:

Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor
will also cry out and not be answered.

Proverbs 17:23 —
The wicked accept bribes in secret
to pervert the course of justice.

Proverbs 29: 4, 7 —
By justice a king gives a country stability,
but those who are greedy for bribes tear it down.

The righteous care about justice for the poor,
but the wicked have no such concern.

Psalm 12 seems very timely:
Help, Lord, for no one is faithful anymore;
those who are loyal have vanished from the human race.
Everyone lies to their neighbor;
they flatter with their lips
and harbor deception in their hearts.

May the Lord silence all flattering lips
and every boastful tongue –
those who say,
“By our tongues we will prevail;
our own lips will defend us – who is lord over us?”

“Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan,
I will now arise,” says the Lord.
“I will protect them from those who malign them.”
And the words of the Lord are flawless,
like silver purified in a crucible,
like gold refined seven times.

You, Lord, will keep the needy safe
and will protect us forever from the wicked,
who freely strut about
when what is vile is honored by the human race.

Psalm 28:3-4–
Do not drag me away with the wicked,
with those who do evil,
who speak cordially with their neighbors
but harbor malice in their hearts.
Repay them for their deeds
and for their evil work;
repay them for what their hands have done
and bring back on them what they deserve.

From Psalm 37–
Do not fret because of those who are evil
or be envious of those who do wrong;
for like the grass they will soon wither,
like green plants they will soon die away….

A little while, and the wicked will be no more;
though you look for them, they will not be found….

The wicked plot against the righteous
and gnash their teeth at the;
but the Lord laughs at the wicked,
for he knows their day is coming.
The wicked draw the sword
and bend the bow
to bring down the poor and needy,
to slay those whose ways are upright.
But their swords will pierce their own hearts,
and their bows will be broken….

I have seen a wicked and ruthless man
flourishing like a luxuriant native tree,
but he soon passed away and was no more;
though I looked for him, he could not be found.

Psalm 52:1-7–
Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero?
Why do you boast all day long,
you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?
You who practice deceit,
your tongue plots destruction;
it is like a sharpened razor.
You love evil rather than good,
falsehood rather than speaking the truth.
You love every harmful word,
you deceitful tongue!

Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin:
He will snatch you up and pluck you from your tent;
he will uproot you from the land of the living.
The righteous will see and fear;
they will laugh at you, saying,
“Here now is the man
who did not make God his stronghold
but trusted in his great wealth
and grew strong by destroying others!”

Psalm 64:2-8–
Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked,
from the plots of evildoers.
They sharpen their tongues like swords
and aim cruel words like deadly arrows.
They shoot from ambush at the innocent;
they shoot suddenly, without fear.
They encourage each other in evil plans,
they talk about hiding their snares;
they say, “Who will see it?”
They plot injustice and say,
“We have devised a perfect plan!”
Surely the human mind and heart are cunning.

But God will shoot them with his arrows;
they will suddenly be struck down.
He will turn their own tongues against them
and bring them to ruin;
all who see them will shake their heads in scorn.

And of course Psalm 109:7-19–
When he is tried, let him be found guilty,
and may his prayers condemn him.
May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership….
May a creditor seize all he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his labor.
May no one extend kindness to him
or take pity on his fatherless children….

For he never thought of doing a kindness,
but hounded to death the poor
and the needy and the brokenhearted.
He loved to pronounce a curse —
may it come back on him.
He found no pleasure in blessing —
may it be far from him.
He wore cursing as his garment;
it entered into his body like water,
into his bones like oil.
May it be like a cloak wrapped about him,
like a belt tied forever around him.

Psalm 140:8-13–
Do not grant the wicked their desires, Lord;
do not let their plans succeed.
Those who surround me proudly rear their heads;
may the mischief of their lips engulf them.
May burning coals fall on them;
may they be thrown into the fire,
into miry pits, never to rise.
May slanderers not be established in the land;
may disaster hunt down the violent.
I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor
and upholds the cause of the needy.
Surely the righteous will praise your name,
and the upright will live in your presence.

And finally, Psalm 146:

Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

I will praise the Lord all my life;
I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
Do not put your trust in princes,
in human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;
on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is the Lord their God.

He is the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and everything in them —
he remains faithful forever.
He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry.
The Lord sets prisoners free,
the Lord gives sight to the blind,
the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
the Lord loves the righteous.
The Lord watches over the foreigner
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

The Lord reigns forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Praise the Lord.

May it be so, Lord. Amen and amen.

Christmas Letter 2024

Letters 3

Happy New Year, my friends, and Happy 8th Day of Christmas! (And 8th day of Hanukkah and 7th day of Kwanzaa!)

No matter how slow I am at actually posting, I love using the holiday time to look back over my year and the joys it held. And do know that it comes with warm wishes for all of you who have touched my life.

The big highlight of 2024 was my 60th birthday trip back to Germany in June! I hadn’t been back since I lived there from 1996 to 2006. Going now on my own, I was able to remember the many things that make my heart happy in Germany, things like:

Visiting Castles:

Hiking amazing forest trails:

Visiting my namesake village:

An incredible Bach choral cantata concert on my birthday in the very church where Bach served:

And of course a bonus was time with Wonderful Kate (former library co-worker in Virginia):

And Delightful Jeanine (former library co-worker in Germany):

The trip was all I hoped for, and if you want to hear more, I blogged about it extensively.

Other trips in 2024 included a quick trip to Ohio with my gaming group (which I’ve attended for TEN years now!) to see the total solar eclipse:

A trip to San Diego for ALA Annual Conference celebrating the Morris Award winners I helped select:

And following up by visiting my sister and then seeing other West Coast siblings – including meeting my new nephew Evan at only 4.5 months old!

In August, I did a weekend retreat in North Carolina with Lorna Byrne, who has been able to see and talk with angels all her life. Her message is incredibly encouraging!

I did a reading retreat in October in West Virginia:

And then finished off my traveling for the year spending a wonderful afternoon in Williamsburg with both my kids – who had come from Oregon to Virginia for their dad’s 60th birthday. You know it made my heart happy to see them!

So those are the exciting travel adventures. But my regular life is busy and happy.

I’m enjoying Floris United Methodist Church more with each year that goes by. I’m co-leading a ladies’ virtual small group, and this Fall we went through a book on Joy. Sharing Joys with each other pulled us closer and it’s been so good to rejoice with each other and pray with each other. I’m also still singing in the choir. The weekly rehearsals help pull me out of my to-do lists each week to focus on music, and singing in the Christmas cantata this year again made my Christmas season special. With orchestra, handbells, and children’s choir, this year’s performances made my heart so full.

And of course I’m all about books! I still love my job selecting children’s books for Fairfax County Public Library, and I’ve taken to calling myself a Book Award Committee Junkie. I did finish up serving on the Morris Award committee at the start of 2024. But I’m still the 0 to 5 Reading Group Facilitator for Capitol Choices – a local group of mostly librarians that meets monthly to discuss and select 100 best books of the year for children and teens. I’m still a Cybils Category Chair for the YA Speculative Fiction category and served as a first-round judge. We announced our Finalists today! On top of that, I serve on the Mathical Book Prize committee – and agreed to next year rotate in as co-chair.

With all that, yes, I’m still posting Sonderbooks. In fact, 2025 will be my 25th year! So I plan over the year to revisit my Stand-outs from all previous years, calling it Sonderbooks 25. This past year, I got a bee in my bonnet to try to catch up posting reviews, and by posting almost daily was able to cut down the number of reviews written and waiting to be posted from 270 to 100. Of course, it would be easier if I would stop writing new ones! Can I catch up in 2025? I will try….

I do feel like with all that posting reviews, I dropped the ball on seeking a publisher for my book Praying with the Psalmists. Though at the same time, my website hits increased to over 300,000 monthly, so maybe that will help.  The idea of the book is about writing prayers using Psalms as a pattern, which I try to still put into practice – so you can follow occasional posts about it here on Sonderjourneys. I hope to get working again to find a publisher in 2025 or evaluate if I should self-publish.

And with all of that, I still get lots of joy from living in a beautiful place. You’re used to seeing pictures of the great blue heron (or herons) who haunt my lake:

Lately, there’s been a hawk hanging around, too.

But I was awfully surprised when an owl was perched over my path a couple weeks ago.

Though even that was nothing to my surprise one day in March, when I was innocently teleworking, and a bald eagle perched on the tree outside my window!

So yes, life is always exciting, and full of big and small joys. My prayer is that we’ll all keep noticing them, no matter what’s in store for us in 2025.

Happy New Year!

My Epic Germany Trip – Day 11 – Hofheim with my Friend

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I’ve been blogging about my 60th Birthday Trip to Germany last June, and I’ve finally reached the last day, Friday, June 21.

I had another wonderful breakfast at Waldhotel Heller, packed up my little Fiat 500, and headed north on the 63 Autobahn – the same one we drove so many times going to the airport, that wasn’t even connected up to the other Autobahn when we first moved there. (So a new, straight, flat Autobahn with very little traffic began near our house. I got used to driving at high speeds on that road. When it was connected up, it was a little sad to lose that, but it was also quicker to drive to Ramstein.)

My flight didn’t leave until 5 pm, so I went to Hofheim, right near the airport, where my friend Jeanine lives. Back in 1998 or so, Jeanine and I were both married to members of the USAFE Band, and we hit it off when she and her husband moved there. And then she got a job at the base library where I was already working, each of us sharing a job, so working 20 hours each. And we got to know each other better. Jeanine ended up marrying a German and staying in Germany – I always envied her a bit for that. But it was delightful to see her!

First we had lunch there in the Zentrum of Hofheim.

I’d actually gone all that time without eating Schnitzel. This one came with a green sauce that was delicious.

Jeanine’s apartment overlooks Hofheim.

And then Jeanine took me on a lovely walking tour of the Altstadt.

The old city wall of Hofheim is still standing in spots.

Since it’s a fortification and over 100 years old – built in 1352 – I decided to count it as Castle #175.

I still love those onion dome churches so common in this area.

And then it was off to the airport and flying back to America.

It turned out that my 10-day trip was just about perfect. I’d been able to remind myself of the many things about Germany that make my heart happy, see friends, make new memories, and I was coming home refreshed.

My Epic Germany Trip – Day 10 – Castle #174 Madenburg

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I’m blogging about my 60th Birthday Trip to Germany last June. Now I’m up to my last full day in Germany, which was Thursday, June 20.

As every day, I started out with a delicious breakfast at Waldhotel Heller. Then that day I decided there was some shopping I wanted to do before I left, so I headed for downtown Kaiserslautern and the Fußgängerzone. (Basically that means – foot-walker zone or, yeah, Pedestrian zone.) The grand bookstore Gondrom wasn’t there any more, but there was another bookstore in the same place.

I took a few pictures in Kaiserslautern:

The name of this shop made me laugh:

I did make a couple of great finds at the bookstore. Die Seufzende Wendeltreppe is the German translation of The Screaming Staircase and is absolutely perfect for Sonderling Sunday. The Ebbes game is a fairly simple card game, but it’s got a Pfälzisch translation and includes a map of the Pfalz – so it’s a perfect local souvenir.

After that, alas! The amazing bakery in Enkenbach where I used to go with my German coworker Elfriede with any excuse at all, but particularly on my birthdays – that bakery is no longer open. But I had been craving Erdbeerküchen (fresh strawberry cake) on every birthday since I left Germany, so I wasn’t about to leave without getting some. The second most legendary bakery from our time in Germany was Cafe Goldinger in Landstuhl – so after shopping, I headed there for lunch and finally got myself a slice of Erdbeerküchen.

Okay, once that was done, I’d checked off the places I simply had to revisit for nostalgia’s sake. So how would I spend my last afternoon in Germany? Why, visit a new castle, of course. I’d decided to head south, in the Pfälzerwald near my hotel, and headed for Madenburg.

Once again, it took some ignoring GPS. I actually asked a German about parking, and got good advice to drive a little further. It was still quite a hike up to the castle, but I like hiking, so it’s all a win. Once there, another castle to roam around with a great view.

The view from a German castle is always wonderful! (Rather than moated castles, they’re pretty much always built on hilltops. At least in the Pfalz.)

This picture shows perfectly what I mean when I say I spent a lot of time driving through hilly curving forest roads.

And there was a castle restaurant!

The salad I ordered was delicious and filling. (I was tired after the hike up to this castle – it was over a mile.)

Then more roaming around:

Then it was back for my last night of Balcony Reading at Waldhotel Heller, and the prettiest sunset yet to send me off.

My Epic Germany Trip – Day 9 – Castle #2 Burg Falkenstein

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I’m blogging about my 60th Birthday Trip back to Germany last June. I’m up to Day 9, which was Wednesday, June 19. I had spent the afternoon driving over the hills and through the meadows to Burg Montfort, where I roamed around and took lots of pictures.

My plan after Burg Montfort included another favorite restaurant that had been closed on Monday and Tuesday – Falkensteinerhof. But Falkensteinerhof was just a bit up the road from a favorite castle, Burg Falkenstein.

I thought I was clever to come to Falkensteinerhof from the north, instead of taking the road between our former homes and the castle. Because that particular road has a 25% grade. My husband had always been the driver when we drove that ridiculously steep road, and even that way, it gave me the willies. The village of Falkenstein (“Falcon-stone”) is on the south side of the largest mountain in the area, the Donnersberg. So on my trip in June, I approached from the north and went up the side of the mountain more gradually, instead of driving straight up to the castle. There are small roads that encircle the Donnersberg, so I was also planning to go back to the hotel after taking in more of the mountain, going around the back side – and avoiding that 25% grade.

I’m a little sad that Burg Falkenstein was our Castle #2 instead of Castle #1. When we first moved to Germany, we were in billeting at Ramstein Air Force Base for three weeks – so the first castle we visited, Burg Nanstein, was closer to Ramstein. Burg Falkenstein was closer to Sembach Air Force Base, the base where my husband was actually stationed (and where I worked at the library), and only about twenty minutes from our homes.

So – when we had visitors from America, who were inevitably jet lagged – a perfect first night activity was to take them to dinner at Falkensteinerhof and then walk over to the castle and roam around the castle, taking in the view. It didn’t involve much driving, didn’t have to take long, and tired people could enjoy it. And visitors from America always think it’s pretty cool to roam around a castle built in 1135 AD.

The restaurant, Falkensteinerhof, has changed hands in the 18 years since we lived there. Now it seems to cater to backpackers and hikers on the Donnersberg. Instead of wait service, you pick up your own food from a counter. It was still very cloudy, and looked like it might rain, so I didn’t eat out on the balcony, but I did choose a table overlooking the big windows.

I had one of those delicious German salads where they don’t toss all the ingredients together, but you find goodies each in a section of their own.

After I finished eating, I was invited to stay and watch World Cup Soccer on the big screen TV that people were gathering for, and I was tempted (that would have reminded me of our last year in Germany), but I still wanted to roam around the castle and get to my hotel before dark. Since dark doesn’t happen in June until about 10 pm, I still had plenty of time, but it might be awkward to leave before the game ended. So next stop was a few hundred yards down the road to Burg Falkenstein. (I drove because although the distance is short, it, too, is steep to walk – though not the 25% grade.)

Burg Falkenstein really did get my nostalgia going again. I can’t even tell you how many times we visited this castle. As I mentioned, it was our favorite place to bring visitors on their first night in Germany. This stone at the front, declaring it was built in 1135, seriously impressed me when we were new to Germany and first saw it. As an American, I’m not used to 850-year-old buildings!

The entrance is a little spooky. I think the cannon is new, though. (I’ll have to check my old pictures.)

And then, as always, wonderful shapes in the ruins.

And, oh, the view from that back wall!

There’s the village of Falkenstein below us. (The 25% grade road goes through the village.)

Looking south, this is pretty typical landscape for that region of Germany, but up on the side of the Donnersberg, you can see far.

Our landlady told us a story of why there was a bell tower without a church in Falkenstein. I think it had to do with there was a Catholic church in the village, so this bell tower was for the Protestants? (I could be totally wrong about that.)

Donkeys!

Sheep!

This is the back way out of the castle:

This wall at Burg Falkenstein is an icon in my heart. Now I’m outside at its base, looking up.

Walking around the side of the castle back to the front.

This informative sign comes when you’re almost done. Some day, I’ll try to figure out how it fits onto the parts we roam around.

The amphitheater at the front used to host performances in the summer (though we never did attend one). At this point in our castle tours, our kids would play Three Billy Goats Gruff with the bridge. Usually Daddy would be the troll.

So then I drove the back way around the Donnersberg – more beautiful roads I’d driven many times – and back to Waldhotel Heller in Elmstein, where I was still in time for leisurely reading on my balcony and a beautiful sunset.

My Epic Germany Trip – Day 9 – Castle #173 Burg Montfort

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I’m blogging about my sixtieth birthday trip to Germany last June – and I’m up to June 19, Day 9.

It was Wednesday – and now some of my favorite restaurants would be open. I thought I’d checked all of them and found them closed Monday and Tuesday, so I was planning to head for a big favorite, located in a castle – Altenbaumburg – on Wednesday, and then hit a new castle nearby. But alas! When I checked Tuesday night, it turned out that the restaurant at Altenbaumburg has its rest days on Wednesday and Thursday – so I was out of luck this time. (And it would have been a perfect place to visit after driving by my former homes on Monday. Oh well!)  I guess I hadn’t checked it after all.

I still had gotten interested in the castle close to Altenbaumburg, in the region north of where we had lived, fairly close to Gundersweiler, my favorite home base, and further up B48.  So I decided to go there anyway.

But first I had two things in mind – first shopping at what used to be called Real, and now is called the Pfalzcentre.  I’d already driven past it twice.  It’s a small shopping mall, anchored by a large store kind of like a Walmart.  Back in the day, I used to find awesome German games there, and that was where I learned about the Spiel des Jahres – the annual German prize for the best game.

I was disappointed in the selection of games, and the ones I ended up getting are available in America anyway.  I also bought a book, hoping to use it for Sonderling Sunday. I thought with the name Jane Austen bleibt zum Frühstück (“Jane Austen Stays for Breakfast”), it would surely have an English translation. But alas! I haven’t been able to find any English versions of this author’s books on Amazon. I tell myself some day I’ll get around to reading it in German.

However, all of that was worth it because I scored a special Deutschland Collection Ravensburger puzzle of Burg Eltz!

Yes, later it was a challenge getting it into my suitcase, but it was worth it. The “Deutschland Collection” puzzles are not available on Amazon, and Burg Eltz was my family’s castle number 39, visited in October 1997. (That evening I thought about going to visit it on Thursday, but it was a solid two hours away, so I decided not this trip.) One of the other puzzles I saw in the “Deutschland Collection” was a picture of the German National Football (Soccer) Team. (The World Cup was happening in Germany at the time.) I wasn’t tempted by that one, but I thought it was funny. Those athletes have to be proud to be part of a Ravensburger puzzle!

I lucked out on weather, because it was foggy as I drove through the forest (That was a little creepy – but in an adventurous way!), and it was rainy while I was shopping, but no more rain the rest of the day. After shopping, next up was a trip to the Flammküchenhütte, a restaurant near where we lived in Sembach that specializes in every kind of Flammküchen (a local dish, a little bit like pizza) you can imagine, but is only open for limited hours a few days a week. So I wanted to catch it before the lunch hours ended.

I ordered Spargel Flammküchen, because that seemed like the ultimate German dish. Spargel is asparagus, and when it’s in season, every restaurant in the country makes a special Spargelkarte – Asparagus Menu. So I was glad I was there for part of the season.

So by the time I finished, it was early afternoon, and time to head to a castle!

I’d chosen Burg Montfort because it was near Altenbaumburg up north on B48. But it turned out there was some kind of road closure near Rockenhausen on B48 – so Google Maps took me on even smaller roads.

Reader, it was delightful!

I couldn’t film while I drove, but driving over hills and around bends out in the German countryside simply made my heart happy. I took a picture of a car on a road later when I was at the castle, because it felt like a good glimpse of exactly what I’d been doing:

The picture gives you an idea of the size of the roads, plus the hills, fields, and trees that I traveled over that day.

I was proud of finding my way to the castle. Because Google maps tried to make me turn left a few moments after I’d seen a small sign saying Burg Montfort was straight ahead. After foolishly following Google the day before, this time, I went with my Castle-Finding Skills developed over ten years in Germany. I found a parking place at the foot of a trail to the castle. Yes! A sign there said the castle was built in the 13th Century. Please note that this kind of visitor in a German village parking lot doesn’t even faze me – this is farm country!

And from there – I hiked the half a kilometer to the castle.

Once I got there, I did what I do at every castle – roamed and climbed over every inch and took lots and lots of pictures. Yes, I’ve narrowed these down. But I hope they give you an idea of the joy of roaming over a castle.

Could you resist these stairs? I could not!

And then of course there are amazing views from the top.

When I looked over the main castle, there was a couple there who looked like they’d been backpacking. They left shortly after I climbed down the tower – and those were the only other people I saw at this castle.

Okay, I did get the willies at this part – but that didn’t stop me from taking pictures.

And when I found a short doorway, I had to take a selfie showing that I’m so tall, I fill the doorway!

Now some of the lovely views on the ground floor. (I love wildflowers growing in ruins, and I love the picturesque shapes the ruins make. As you can see.)

Yes, I know I overdo it with castle pictures! (Believe it or not, I weeded them down.) I hope this gives you an idea of the fun I had roaming over the castle, spotting beautiful angles. It brings me right back.

And finally it was time to hike back down the trail through the forest to my car:

It all added up to a glorious afternoon at a 700-year-old castle ruin.

Thanksgiving Psalm for a Later Phase of Life

Praying with the Psalmists 2

It’s Thanksgiving Day!

And this calls for a Thanksgiving Psalm. The Thanksgiving Psalms in Scripture are Psalms 9, 18, 30, 40, 66, 107, 116, 118, 124, and 138. They’ve got this form:

1) Call to Praise
2) “I Was in Trouble”
3) “I Called”
4) “God Answered”
5) Response of Praise

So these Thanksgiving Psalms include a story of how the psalmist was specifically in a bad place, they turned to God, and God came through. This is different than our typical list of things we’re thankful for. But let me tell you how it fits with my mood for Thanksgiving this year and how writing a thanksgiving psalm I think will help set me right, remind me of the good God has done in my life.

First, November is always a little fraught for me. It was November 10, 2005, when I got back from an amazing trip to Paris with my writing buddies, right after my husband had told me he was divorcing me – that he moved out of our house to start the clock on our separation to make that divorce happen. November 22, 2010 was when we finally had a court date for that divorce, and November 25, 2010, was the date our divorce was final. Then November 30 is my ex-husband’s birthday, and November 30, 2019, was the day my mother passed away from Alzheimer’s, two months after my father had passed away from a heart attack.

So, yeah. And this year, I’ve been blogging about my trip back to Germany, so a dose of nostalgia about my young family. (I think I did keep the dosage not too high, but it was there.)

And this week, my ex-husband has his 60th birthday. So both my kids went to visit him, only a few hours away in southern Virginia. They’re there for a week, and I’ll go down and meet them in Williamsburg next Tuesday – just like I used to do when my youngest attended William & Mary.

But Tuesday night, I was feeling just a little blue. And I couldn’t play games online with my youngest like we do most weeks, because they’re with their Dad. And a text with a picture in the airport reminded me of all the times we traveled as a family – and made me miss them and miss being a family.

I’ve tried to counteract all that by remembering how thankful I am for the phase of life I’m in now. It’s Thanksgiving, after all!

But Tuesday I was feeling a little blue – and I did my mostly-daily reading a page of Scripture – and this verse (already circled) was on that page:

Isaiah 46:4 —

Even to your old age and gray hairs
I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

I’ll take it! Yes, what I needed to hear at that moment. I’m in a new phase of life – one I never expected when I was in the Young Family Phase – single, with a career and my dream job, serving on book award committees, co-leading a small group, singing in a choir… Life is very, very good – and all these are gifts from God, who is with me still. I still need sustenance and carrying at times, and God freely gives it.

And then I realized that on my ex-husband’s actual birthday (which is also the 5-year anniversary of my mother’s death), I’m going to hit Isaiah 55 in my Scripture reading. Back during the hard five years of the divorce process, every single time my husband mentioned taking me to court, somehow or other, in my reading or in a sermon, Isaiah 55 would come up, including the verse – “You will refute every tongue that accuses you.” So *that* reminds me of how, even though I very much didn’t want the divorce, God was with me through that and God has brought great good out of it – and yeah, I need to write a thanksgiving psalm!

A Thanksgiving Psalm for a Later Phase of Life

Thank you, Lord!
For you have always been faithful.
You see me, you know my heart’s cry,
and you always tenderly care for me.

I’d thought I was in a happy marriage,
I relished time in Europe with my young family,
and divorce hit me like a thunderbolt,
my world turned upside-down and inside-out.
Everything I’d thought about my future
was rendered impossible,
and with it everything I’d thought about my own lovability
was rendered questionable.

But I did turn to you
in my trouble, Lord.
And I turned to friends,
who listened, who encouraged,
and who helped me turn to you.

And you answered!

Friends surrounded me, prayed with me
assured me I was worthy of love.
Friends let me stay with them,
helped me get my bearings,
give me a place to visit on holidays
(to this day!),
and gave me the strength
to envision a new life as a single mom.

I got my Master’s in Library Science,
became a librarian,
landed a job near my home,
became a Cybils judge,
got on the Newbery committee,
got on the Mathical Book Prize committee,
got on the Morris committee,
and landed my dream job
as Youth Materials Selector.

I get to sing in the choir,
co-lead a small group,
play games with friends every week,
post book reviews,
write a book about Psalms,
own my own condo
(thanks to a down payment from my Dad),
where I can walk by a lake
and take pictures of great blue herons.

My life is simply overflowing
with wonderful things –
and most of them would have never happened
if I had stayed married.
Truly, God, you work all things together for good –
even from things that are bad by themselves.

This is a different life
than anything I had ever envisioned –
but it is very good.

Thank you, Lord,
for surprising me with a future I hadn’t imagined.
For sustaining me, carrying me
when I was at my lowest
and still giving a boost
even at low times now.
(When I know full well I have no business feeling blue –
you, Lord, know that I am human.)

Thank you for a lovely day
with a Friend-Since-3rd-Grade and her family
and a hug from a Mom
to fill that feeling of missing my own Mom.
Thank you for food and games and laughter
and people caring about and enjoying each other.

Thank you for a wonderful world full of surprises
and a wonderful life.