"The Language of Amazement"

I was one of those people who didn’t grow up in the church. The only memory I have is going to a Presbyterian church every once in a great while. I don’t remember much of anything that was said, but I do remember two distinct things. First, there was the lighting of candles and there was a bunch of them. In lighting the candles there were supposed to be two people but one never showed and so one boy had to light what seemed to be hundreds of candles. The other thing I remember is the doxology. I used to love to hear the booming sound of the congregation singing those words. It was rightly and truly inspiring. Well, praise God the Lord saved me several years later as a 21 year old army man. I was saved in a Baptist church and they don’t sing the doxology and I often wonder why not?

Walter Brueggemann is known as one of America’s best theologians and one of the world’s foremost scholars on the Old Testament. In his book, Prophetic Imaginations he asserts … “I believe that, rightly embraced, no more subversive or prophetic idiom can be uttered than the practice of doxology, which sets us before the reality of God, of God right at the center of a scene from which we presumed he had fled” (Brueggemann 2001, 68).

Are you struggling about something today? Are you grief stricken about a wayward child, a physically ailing parent, or the loss of a loved one? Can I affirm to you today, by the uplifting presence and divine power of the person of the Holy Spirit that will enable you to rise up in the midst of whatever burden you bear and to SING with your whole heart and soul...

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below. 
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. 
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. 

and 

"the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you" 

Bibliography                                                                                                                                  Brueggemann, Walter. The Prophetic Imagination. 2nd Edition. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001.