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Grounding a Youth Ministry Mission Statement in Theology:An Illustrative Example

“Planting Seeds of Hope and JoyBest Practices for Starting, Nurturing and Growing Ministries with Youth”

A Yale Divinity School Summer Study CourseJune 1-5, 2015

Follow youth ministers through their day and you will certainly see them

reflecting on how to walk with their kids in earnest, authentic relationships; how to

reach out with entrepreneurial vigor; how to design the right, age-appropriate mix

of activities, experiences and lessons; how to draw on the best practices of

similarly situated youth groups. Getting these elements “right” will often suffice to

draw our young people into sustained participation and relationship. Yet, scholars

have been increasingly attentive to reflections on how to ground our youth ministry

practices in theology – how to give our theology “legs” in the practices of our

youth ministry. After all, we aspire to more than just community formation; we

aspire to loving care and discipleship in Christ’s name.

Author Mike Root gave this concern voice in a review of the seminal book by

Kenda Creasy Dean and Andrew Root, The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry:

We have been perplexed by decades of accumulating and overwhelming data indicating that the Christian church in North America is failing to form disciples among adolescents who stay connected to their churches. Root and Dean skillfully illustrate the

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essential role practical theology plays as an imperative correction toward authentic Christian formation of young people.

In the youth ministry I served in Connecticut, we explored several ways to

ground our ministry in theology and to give our theology “legs” in our ministry.

When we recently turned to rewriting our mission statement, for instance, we

turned to a framework drawn from the Psalms.

For twenty years I’d made a Psalm-based lectio divina part of my “little rule” of

daily life. After times of meditation, I often jotted down little margin notes

“coding” topics and issues that percolated up in my readings.

When I was reviewing my margin “codes” five summers ago, I was struck by

two patterns: first, how frequently God cares for humanity with parent-like

tenderness (and how frequently the Psalmist appeals to God for parent-like care

and provision); and, second, how many Psalms seem to organize around three

concerns as foundational for personal, familial, and communal flourishing. If God

is a “parent” who seeks flourishing life for God’s “family,” then it seems that

God’s parenting plan is based on three principle concerns: love, covenant, and

communion. (If I were going for a “3 C’s” catchphrase, I might have said

“caritas,” “covenant,” and “communion.”) By “love,” I mean unconditional love

and acceptance. By “covenant,” I mean clear and understandable commitments and

boundaries. By “communion,” I mean connection, relationship, participation in

something larger than oneself.

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It struck me that these same three concerns might provide an appropriate

foundation for our youth ministry mission statement. After all, if the Psalms reflect

the values, setting or environment God thinks essential to human flourishing, then

they necessarily point us to the values, setting, and environment that should ground

our youth ministry as well. To the extent love, covenant, and communion are

God’s gifts to humanity, we seek to be channels of God’s gifts when we serve to

instantiate them in the particular body of Christ that is our youth group. To the

extent our young people experience these gifts proximately through the ministry of

our youth group, they both experience the nurture foundational for human

flourishing and are pointed back towards the God who is the ultimate author of the

gifts in the first place.

Our youth ministry mission statement sought to capture these foundational

aspirations as follows:

1. We believe that the way of Christ offers our youth a life that is abundant,

flourishing, and everlasting.

2. We believe that flourishing life is best nurtured in a community marked

by love, covenant, and communion.

Love: A community in which all our youth, wherever they are on

life’s path, are unconditionally loved and accepted as they are.

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Covenant: A community in which our youth share covenantal

commitments to clear and understandable values and

boundaries.

Communion: A community in which our youth passionately

participate in something larger than themselves; the great

adventure of loving and serving in God’s name (Youth Ministry

Mission Statement).

A. God cares for humanity with parental care and tenderness

In the Psalms, God cares for humanity with parental tenderness. For instance,

Psalm 103:13 tells us, “As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord

has compassion for those who fear him.” Psalm 89:26 reads, “He shall cry to me,

‘you are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’ ” In Psalm 71:6, the

Psalmist turns to God as a midwife: “Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was

you who took me from my mother’s womb.” As Calvin noted in his Commentary

on the Book of Psalms: “[God] bears the character of the best of fathers [and/or

mothers], who takes pleasure in tenderly cherishing his children and bountifully

nourishing them” (170).

Commenting on Psalm 103, Claus Westermann put it this way:

At this point the summons of the Psalm first receives its basic tonality. “You infinitesimally small human, do not forget who unites your little life with the mighty dimension of eternity. Praise, praise with all your being the eternal God for sending fatherly goodness into your little life;

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for somewhere and in some way your life participates in something which is sharp contrast with human frailty: the steadfast love of the Lord” (9).

B. Flourishing life is best nurtured in a community marked by unconditional love and acceptance.

The first foundational tenet of God’s “parenting” plan is unconditional love and

acceptance. Psalm 36:5 sings, “Your steadfast love, O lord, extends to the heavens,

your faithfulness to the clouds.” Psalm 27:10 sings, “If my father and mother

forsake me, the Lord will take me up.” Psalm 103:8 sings, “The Lord is merciful

and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. / He will not always

accuse, nor will he keep his anger forever. / He does not deal with us according to

our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities.”

In the New Testament we might be looking for the Greek word, agape, but in

the Psalms, the Hebrew word translated as “steadfast love” is hesed. It has no

English equivalent, but hesed is what binds the parties to a covenant together; it

encompasses all aspects of a loving relationship: steadfastness, kindness, trust, and

forgiveness. And because God remains unconditionally loving despite Israel’s

frequent betrayals, hesed strongly connotes “mercy” as well.

How important is hesed, steadfast love, to our Father/Mother God? More than a

third of all Psalms sing of God’s steadfast love. The Psalmist sings of God’s hesed

109 times in 54 different Psalms.

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Sr. Kathleen Harmon, SNDdeN, Ph.D, has described the Psalmist’s relationship

with God like this:

The all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of the universe is not at the beck and call of natural forces, political powers or pagan gods; yet this YOU places Self at the beck and call of the rag-tag human clan with whom a very personal and very permanent covenant of love has been established (122-123).

In his Anthropology in a Theological Perspective, Wolfhart Pannenberg saw

God’s unconditional love and acceptance as the true foundation of the basic trust

psychologists understood as the necessary precondition to healthy human growth

and development. The infant experiences this basic trust proximately through the

mother’s love, but God is the true object of this basic trust right from the

beginning:

In the beginning the question is the mother’s love. Then, as basic trust detaches itself from the exclusive link with the mother, the real problem of life arises: How can human beings be sure of being loved and affirmed from this point on? Here a further implication of basic trust emerges. Basic trust is directed to an agency that is capable without limitation of protecting and promoting the selfhood of those who trust in it. This kind of limitless capacity and readiness manifests itself to the child in the devotion of the mother, but, objectively speaking, it in fact transcends the limits that in every case affect in one way or another the capacity and readiness of the mother. Because of its lack of limitation, basic trust is therefore antecedently a religious phenomenon. In the first phase of her child’s life a mother deputizes for and represents to her child the love of God that transcends her love and is directed to the child through her. God is the true object of basic trust even in its beginning.… Hans Kung ... therefore says that faith in God is also “radical fundamental trust” (331).

Our youth ministry sought to work with our young people, their parents, our

congregation, and our town proximately to foster a community that reflects God’s

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commitment to unconditional love and acceptance. We sought to practice a

“relational ministry” that would nurture our young and point them to God, the

ultimate source of unconditional love. As Kenda Creasy Dean put it in Practicing

Passion:

When we talk about the importance of “relational ministry” in Christian youth work, what we really mean is that young people need the ability to give and receive fidelity, and they learn this in the fidelity of God that is glimpsed in human relationships of reliable love. To a greater or lesser extent, every person in youth ministry knows the compelling witness involved in “being there” for young people (90).

And if you had asked our town’s parents, coaches, teachers, and youth

ministers, I think you would have found a broad consensus supporting this vision

of “being there” for our children. Nobody opposes the notion of affording our kids

unconditional love and acceptance.

Still, there is a serpent of temptation in most “gardens” that preys on our own

good intentions, that exploits our intense concern for our children in a way that

sometimes undermines their experience of unconditional love and acceptance. That

serpent, that temptation, is ambition for our children’s college admissions and

anxiety about their prospects.

I think our parents were pretty darn good at loving and accepting our children

when they were in their care, but studies show that adolescents spend only two to

four hours a week in meaningful engagement with their parents. Why? Because, as

parents, we have delegated so much of our children’s growth, training and

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development to professional organizations and individuals. Why? Because we’re

concerned that it’s no longer adequate to have sandlot baseball skills to get into a

good college; it’s no longer good enough to have a dress-up box interest in ballet;

it’s no longer good enough to have dear old Dad struggle through your math

homework with you.

Fifty years ago, I learned baseball and soccer by playing with my buddies in the

schoolyard and by playing with my Dad every day after work. My mom checked

my homework every night – which I most certainly hated at the time. Now, it’s

Blue Wave Sports, and English Football League coaches, and professional math

tutors.

We do these things because we love our children; because we’re concerned for

their growth and development; because we want them to have wonderful choices

of college and career. And there are many, many coaches, dance teachers, tutors,

and drama directors who themselves labor to create environments of unconditional

love and acceptance.

Yet, somewhere along the way, the serpent in the garden began to turn this

dynamic around. What happens when a 26-year-old soccer coach, a 30-year-old

dance teacher, or a 40-year-old theater director starts taking over instructional and

mentoring roles traditionally played by parents and other family members?

Sometimes, just sometimes, the competitive needs of the travel team, the dance

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academy, the theater company and the ambitions of their directors start refracting

the value set from an unconditional love and acceptance to a highly conditional

approval based on competitive achievement.

Theologian Chap Clark put it this way in his study of adolescent life titled Hurt

2.0: Inside the World of Today’s Teenagers:

While these and other nurturing structures and movements were beneficial in many ways, a subtle change soon took place. These structures eventually distanced adults from the specific needs of adolescents. By the time adolescents enter high school, nearly every one has been subjected to a decade or more of adult-driven and adult controlled programs, systems, and institutions that are primarily concerned with adults’ agendas, needs and dreams. The shift has taken place not only in how our systems react to the demands of a particular enterprise but also in the focus of those in charge. In general, the good of the unique individual has been supplanted by a commitment to the good of the _____ (fill in the blank: team, school, community, class, or organization). Today, even very young children learn that they are only as valuable as their ability to contribute (31).

Sociologist Patricia Hersch put it this way in her book, A Tribe Apart: A

Journey Into the Heart of American Adolescence:

What kids need from adults is not just rides, pizza, chaperones, and discipline. They need the telling of stories, the close, ongoing contact, so that they can learn to be accepted. If nobody is there to talk to, it is difficult to get the lessons of your own life so that you are adequately prepared to do the next thing. Without a link across generations, kids will only hear from their peers. The Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development report, A Matter of Time found that, “Young adolescents do not want to be left to their own devices.” In national surveys and focus groups, America’s youth have given voice to serious longing. They want more regular contact with adults who care about them and respect them (364).

At its best, youth ministry creates the time and space for adults to walk

alongside young people in deep relationship, manifesting unconditional love and

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acceptance. But simply calling a relationship “youth ministry” is no guarantee that

it will avoid the dynamics of a “performance-valued” relationship. Youth ministers

are not immune from the temptations that nudge the good intentions of teachers

and coaches. We, too, are at risk of favoring the most responsive kids, of putting

kids in roles that “make the program look good” or drive the numbers up.

We are not immune, but, at our best, we strive to reach out to all of our kids the

way Jesus reached out to the “least of these.” And when we do reach out to the

suffering, to the afflicted, to the disadvantaged, to the imprisoned—when we

embrace all our kids with unconditional love and acceptance—the beauty that

results can be astonishing.

“Sven” first started participating in our high school youth group in the winter of

2000. He didn’t seem to have many friends in the group; I mostly remember him as

sitting or standing at the periphery of gatherings, when he came at all.

During the fall of 2000, Sven seemed to be drifting away from us, and, as we

would learn, his life was spiraling further from the center of school and social life

as well. Matters came to a head in March of 2001, when Sven thought it would be

a good idea to fill three tennis balls with shaving cream and an accelerant and blow

up a locker at school. An acquaintance informed school authorities that Sven had

“bombs” in his locker, and events quickly spiraled out of control. The attacks at

Columbine (1998) and the World Trade Center (2001) were fresh in folks’ mind,

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and word of “bombs” at the high school drove all authorities into “red alert”

protocols.

Sven was taken into custody and interrogated without counsel; the state bomb

squad searched the high school for additional bombs; and network news

helicopters hovered as news trucks parked around campus with their satellite

antennas sending off the latest breathless dispatches. Sven was sent off to the

Bridgeport House of Detention and stripped of shoelaces and belt; the school board

promptly met intending to expel Sven from school.

The demands of “unconditional love and acceptance” were obvious. Youth

ministers intervened with police to halt the interrogation until we could get Sven a

lawyer; and youth ministers traveled up to Bridgeport daily to visit Sven and

deliver sacks of letters written by kids in the youth group. Church members

intervened with the school board.

While courts and school board ground through their processes, Sven huddled in

his cell, trying to keep his bearings. One day he dug into his pocket and fished out

a letter he had received from a 16-year-old girl from school. She wrote,

I’ve thought long and hard as to how to make you happy, make you smile and burst with joy. The only thing I can think of is the only thing that makes me truly happy: God. Do you know that your life has a purpose? Do you know that when you laugh, you do not laugh alone, nor, when you cry, do you cry alone? When your world seems to collapse, remember that God is there holding you up. When Christ died on the cross, He made all suffering holy. Through suffering, we become closer to Him. And God is love and joy and peace and all our hearts could

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ever long for. All will be made right in the end through Christ our Lord. The truth shall set you free.

And Sven was freed. In the end, the courts put him on probation, and the school

board permitted him to rejoin his classmates. Sven graduated on time with his class

and went on to flourish in college as an English major. After graduation, he

pursued a successful career in business while founding arts organizations and

fellowships in his spare time.

When Sven rejoined our youth group, he told us that the moment he read the

young girl’s letter, he knew God would see him through. He became a senior

leader of our Youth Group and our Youth Group Quest, and he never missed a

single meeting ever again. Well after he graduated from high school, Sven would

return every year to volunteer on our youth group mission trips

C. Flourishing life is best nurtured in a community marked by clear and understandable boundaries.

The second foundational tenet of God’s “parenting” plan is covenant, a shared

commitment to understandable values and boundaries. As with hesed, there are

many psalms lifting up covenant, law, Torah, word, saying, commandment, statute,

precept, testimony, way, or path as God’s gifts to nurture and support human

flourishing. References to law, statutes, commandments, and covenants appear in

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22 psalms.1 The Psalmist doesn’t experience God’s covenants or laws as life-

squashing constraints but rather sources of joy and flourishing.

One single theme binds the 175 verses of Psalm 119 together – the praise of the law. The Psalmist does not feel the law as a burden at all. In fact, he loves it. The law is his joy, his recreation, his diversion. In the midst of persecution and trouble, it is the study of the law that keeps him firm and on a steady course. Jonathan Edwards is reported to have said that there is no part of the Holy Scriptures where the nature and evidence of true and sincere godliness are so fully delineated as in this Psalm (Surburg 10).

This human yearning for God’s guidance in law and covenant is enshrined in

what are referred to as the three Torah psalms: Psalms 1, 19, and 119 (Mays 3).

The focus of these Psalms is not so much on the need and desire to obey God as it

is on how much the Psalmist flourishes as a result of God’s law. Over and over, we

hear that God’s law is life-giving. Not only does it keep us on the right path and

out of trouble, but it also gives us joy. We see this in Psalm 19, for example:

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul, the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.The commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes;

The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever;The ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

1 For example, “Law” (torah) appears in 33 verses in Psalms 1, 19, 37, 40, 78 89, 94, and 119, all of which emphasize the life-giving properties of Torah: “But their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2); “Great peace have those who love Your law; nothing can make them stumble” (Psalm 119:165). “Commandment” appears predominantly in Psalms 19 and 119: “The commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes” (19:8); “I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad” (119:96). “Covenant” appears 24 times in 15 Psalms: 25, 44, 50, 55, 60, 74, 78, 80, 83, 89, 103, 105, 106, 111, and 132. “All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his decrees” (Psalm 25:10).

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More to be desired are they than gold, even much refined gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb (Psalm 19:7-10).

It may seem odd to make covenant or law a pillar of youth ministry; after all, a

common element in adolescent life is the testing of limits, the casting off of

constraints. As Erik Erikson acknowledged,

[S]hould a child feel that the environment tries to deprive him [or her] too radically of all the forms of expression which permit him [or her] to develop and to integrate the next step in his [or her] ego identity, [s/]he will resist with the astonishing strength encountered in animals who are suddenly forced to defend their lives. Indeed, in the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of ego identity (90).

Yet, what was true for Israel remains true for our adolescents. Properly

understood, law and covenant can be embraced as indispensable guide rails for

flourishing life. As the Psalmist sings in the very first psalm, those who delight in

the law are “…like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its

season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper” (1:3).

Just as Jesus held himself out as “the way and the truth and the life” (John

14:6), and the “bread of life” (John 6:35), and the bearer of “abundant life,” (John

10:10), and just as Paul exhorted followers to “take hold of the life that is really

life (1 Timothy 5), so the Psalmist understood the law as guidance to the life that

was more than mere biological survival.

As Matthew J. O’Connell concluded in his study of commandment in the Old

Testament,

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Clearly . . . for the Psalmist “to have life” means . . . not only earthly existence but also that higher interior life of moral union with God who encounters man in the law, which alone makes life truly worth living to the writer. . . . Upon this foundation, derived from the verses which speak explicitly of law and life, we can construct a fuller picture of what life means for the Psalmist, that inner life which flows from the fulfillment of the divine will or, more accurately, which is the fulfillment of the divine will: a life according to the divine will is its own reward (386-387).

Theologian Rudolph Bultmann concluded that law was the indispensable

guarantor of freedom itself:

We may say that the Word of God addresses man in his insecurity and calls him into freedom, for man loses his freedom in his very yearning for security. This formulation may sound paradoxical, but it becomes clear when we consider the meaning for freedom. Genuine freedom is not subjective arbitrariness. It is freedom in obedience. Freedom is obedience to a law of which the validity is recognized and accepted, which man recognizes as the law of his own being. This can only be a law which has its origin and reason in the beyond. We may call it the law of spirit or, in Christian language, the law of God (?).

Philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset concluded that the loss of acknowledged and

accepted “commandments” had unhinged the youth of his day from purpose and

meaning:

Without commandments, obliging us to live after a certain fashion, our existence is that of the ‘unemployed.’ This is the terrible spiritual situation in which the best youth of the world finds itself today. By dint of feeling itself free, exempt from restrictions, it feels itself empty (136).

And while we have all experienced adolescents pouring energy into resisting

parental or adult imposed rules, Carla Barnhill has reported on the several studies

finding that adolescents yearn for clear boundaries they can embrace as their own:

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When even their souls are a commodity to be shopped out to someone else, it’s not surprising that teenagers feel their parents are too busy for them or unsure of their ability to parent. And teenagers can smell fear. As soon as they’ve sensed they’ve gained control, as soon as they believe that adults are afraid to challenge them, it’s human nature for them to push until they find the boundary. They may complain about the limits parents set on them, but several studies, including one from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, show that teens desperately need and want the sense of control and safety that healthy boundaries provide (?).

Indeed, Erik Erikson reported that, when it comes to conventions and

boundaries that adolescents “own” as theirs, they can be positively pharisaic with

each other.

To keep themselves together [adolescents] temporarily overidentify with the heroes of cliques and crowds. On the other hand, they become remarkably clannish, intolerant, and cruel in their exclusion of others who are “different,” …. Adolescents help one another temporarily through such discomfort by forming cliques and by stereotyping themselves, their ideals, and their enemies (92).

D. Flourishing Life is best nurtured in a community marked by communion, participation in something larger than the individual self.

The third foundational tenet of God’s “parenting plan” is community, a

community marked by participation in something larger than the individual self.

This almost went without saying in ancient Israel: the modern phenomenon of

hyper-individualism, the notion that life could be lived as an insular, autonomous

self would have been unthinkable. Every Israelite understood themselves as “a part

of” not “apart from” their village, their tribe, their nation, “God’s people.”

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Still, as with hesed and covenant, the notion of participation and communion

finds expression in many psalms. Some psalms hold up the individual as

participating in a people or a flock (Psalm 28:8-9: “The Lord is the strength of his

people . . . . O save your people . . . Be their shepherd forever.”; Psalm 68:9-10: O

God, you showered abroad, you renewed your heritage when it languished; your

flock found a dwelling in it.”; Psalm 95:6-7: “For he is our God, And we are the

people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.”) Some psalms hold up the

righteous as part of a grove or forest or garden (e.g.Psalm 92:12-15: The righteous

flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in

the house of the Lord; They flourish in the courts of our God.”) Some psalms

locate the individual in a worshipping throng or multitude (e.g. Psalm 42: These

things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them

in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a

multitude keeping festival.”

Time and time again, our experiences working with youth (and the

testimonies of these young people and their families) tell us that young people

flourish and are better able to shape their own identities and beliefs when they see

themselves as part of a larger group, when they experience themselves as part of a

living community that draws them into transcendent, ecstatic practices of

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relationship, worship, and service - that lifts them out of their quotidian self-

absorption.

As Kenda Creasy Dean explains:

First we belong, and then we believe. “We love because [God] first loved us,” John’s first letter informs us (1 John 4:19), and psychology concurs. The interpersonal ego state precedes the ideological, or institutional, ego state; before there is a self to share with another, the other is required to bring the self into being. We tend to adopt the beliefs and values of our “primary groups,” whose approval we greatly desire, and who we hope will desire us. To “have” a group as a teenager – to know a group “has” us – is to possess something profoundly sacred. Apart from other people who “like me” during adolescence enough to “be there” for me, there is no “me”, making solidarity with those who like and accept me critical in constructing my identity (108).

In Being and Communion, John Zizioulas emphasizes that human beings are

defined by their communion with one another instead of by some unique essence

of each individual: “The only way for a true person to exist is for being and

communion to coincide” (107). We flourish by belonging and communion.2

2 In an opinion piece titled “The Rank-Link Imbalance,” New York Times columnist David Brooks, diagnoses the problem with lives based on striving to achieve rather than lives based on genuine relationships:

Every society produces its own distinct brand of social misfits, I suppose, but our social structure seems to produce significant numbers of people with rank-link imbalances. That is to say, they have all the social skills required to improve their social rank, but none of the social skills that lead to genuine bonding. They are good at vertical relationships with mentors and bosses, but bad at horizontal relationships with friends and lovers. Perhaps they grow up in homes with an intense success ethos and get fed into the Achievatron, the complex social machine that takes young children and molds them into Ivy League valedictorians. They go through oboe practice, soccer camp, homework marathon childhood. Their parent-teacher conferences are like mini-Hall of Fame enshrinements as all gather to worship at the flame of their incipient success. In high school, they enter their Alpha Geekdom. They rack up great grades and develop that coating of arrogance that forms on those who know that in the long run they will be more successful than the beauties and jocks who get dates....These Type A men are just not equipped to have normal relationships. All their lives they’ve been a walking Asperger’s Convention, the kings of the emotionally avoidant. Because of disuse, their sensitivity synapses are still performing at preschool levels. So when they decide that they do in fact have an inner soul and it’s time to take it out for a romp . . . . Well, let’s just say they’ve just bought a ticket on the self-immolation express. Some desperate lunge towards intimacy is sure to follow, some sad attempt at bonding. . . . Maybe they’d be O.K. if somewhere along the way they’d had true friends.

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Dean explains how this human need for communion and self-knowledge

through participation in a larger cause is particularly pronounced during

adolescence:

Adolescent attraction to ecstasy is more than a byproduct of culture; ecstasy provides evidence of the human desire to shape identity around a source of ultimate meaning. The need to get beyond the boundaries of self – the wish, as Erikson put it, “to break through to a provider of identity” – is part of adolescents’ standard psychological circuitry. In a much overlooked portion of his work on identity formation, Erikson observed that the adolescent craving for “locomotion” causes young people to seek ways to be moved both physically and existentially. Young people are constantly “on the go”; they take drugs to “get high” or “take a trip”; they “lose themselves” in sports or dance or music; they are “swept off their feet” by romance and they “get a rush” from fast cars, extreme physical challenges, or lightening paced action movies. Wanderlust does not drive the adolescent desire for “locomotion” as much as the human need to break through the self’s boundaries to be “transported” to a new place, from which they may glimpse a larger, more encompassing world that invites their participation (Practicing Passion 100).

A letter from a youth group parent revealed the spiritual generation that can

occur--for all of us--when our youth have opportunities to participate in something

greater than themselves:

Just saying thank you doesn’t even come close to articulate how much John and I appreciate all you have done for our daughter Rachel. I am struggling with the right words and cannot seem to find them. . . Rachel has always gotten so much out of the mission trips. . . . Last night when we were all tucked in, Rachel came to our room and asked me to turn on the light and read something she had written. She sat on the floor by the side of my bed as I read a 4-page journal entry about her experience. We wept together and then talked for a bit about how she got more out of that week than most do in a lifetime. She said she saw God in these people and her life will never be the same and how she knows the kind of person she strives to become and is becoming. That moment with her sharing her innermost thoughts with us will be forever etched in my memory as one of the strongest, most connected moments I have ever had with Rachel.

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Rachel’s experience reveals the connection between young people’s ability to

participate in others’ lives and their ability to experience communion with God.

Her journal entry (and her mother’s powerful experience of it as well) demonstrate

the powerful intimacy between God, person and other in these moments.3

3 As Dean writes in Practicing Passion,

Yet within adolescent’s acute desire to merge with others lies a deeper human hunger: homo religiosus’ longing for communion with the God whose desire for intimacy is the reason for our own. Passion connotes desire (in Latin, “longing for the stars”), which is simultaneously a sexual and spiritual phenomenon. Christian tradition recognizes God’s desire for relationship as the impetus for divine revelation, reflected in the human impulse towards “otherness.” Familiarity that does not risk suffering, that violates love’s confidence, or that fails to delight is never intimate, whereas passion, which willingly exchanges one life for another, is profoundly so. Intimus (Latin for “inner” or “innermost”) is the binding of oneself to another, the communion that transforms “me” into “we” (118).

20

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21

doubled over the time period, while the number of suicidal students tripled and the

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22

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23

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24

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25

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26

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53% who are Protestants (3).

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27

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28

Attachment “A”

January 10, 2012

A Collection of Psalms

Love, Covenant, Communion

1. Love - “Hesed”

Psalm 13:5

5 But I trusted in your steadfast love;

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

Psalm 17:7

7 Wondrously show your steadfast love,

O savior of those who seek refuge

from their adversaries at your right hand.

Psalm 18:1, 50

1 I love you, O Lord, my strength.

50 Great triumphs he gives to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed,

to David and his descendants forever.

29

Psalm 25: 7, 10

7 Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;

according to your steadfast love remember me,

for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!

10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,

for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.

Psalm 36:7

7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God!

All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Psalm 59:16-17

16 But I will sing of your might;

I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.

For you have been a fortress for me

and a refuge in the day of my distress.

17 O my strength, I will sing praises to you,

for you, O God, are my fortress,

the God who shows me steadfast love.

Psalm 85:10

10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;

righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

Psalm 86: 5, 15

5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,

30

abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.

15 But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Psalm 87:1-2

1 On the holy mount stands the city he founded;

2 the Lord loves the gates of Zion

more than all the dwellings of Jacob.

Psalm 89: 2, 28, 33, 49

2 I declare that your steadfast love is established forever;

your faithfulness is as firm as the heavens.

28 Forever I will keep my steadfast love for him,

and my covenant with him will stand firm.

33 but I will not remove from him my steadfast love,

or be false to my faithfulness.

49 Lord, where is your steadfast love of old,

which by your faithfulness you swore to David?

Psalm 91:14

14 Those who love me, I will deliver;

I will protect those who know my name.

Psalm 92:2

2 to declare your steadfast love in the morning,

and your faithfulness by night,

31

Psalm 98:3

3 He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness

to the house of Israel.

All the ends of the earth have seen

the victory of our God.

Psalm 100:5

5 For the Lord is good;

his steadfast love endures forever,

and his faithfulness to all generations.

Psalm 103:4, 11, 17

4 who redeems your life from the Pit,

who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

11 For as the heavens are high above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

17 But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting

on those who fear him,

and his righteousness to children’s children,

Psalm 106: 1-2

1 Praise the Lord!

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

for his steadfast love endures forever.

2 Who can utter the mighty doings of the Lord,

or declare all his praise?

32

Psalm 107:1, 8

1 O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

for his steadfast love endures forever.

8 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,

for his wonderful works to humankind.

Psalm 108:4-6

4 For your steadfast love is higher than the heavens,

and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.

5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,

and let your glory be over all the earth.

6 Give victory with your right hand, and answer me,

so that those whom you love may be rescued.

Psalm 109:21

21 But you, O Lord my Lord,

act on my behalf for your name’s sake;

because your steadfast love is good, deliver me.

Psalm 116: 1

I love the Lord, because he has heard

my voice and my supplications.

33

Psalm 117:1-2

1 Praise the Lord, all you nations!

Extol him, all you peoples!

2 For great is his steadfast love toward us,

and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord!

Psalm 119: 64, 76, 159

64 The earth, O Lord, is full of your steadfast love;

teach me your statutes.

76 Let your steadfast love become my comfort

according to your promise to your servant.

159 Consider how I love your precepts;

preserve my life according to your steadfast love.

Psalm 138:2, 8

2 I bow down toward your holy temple

and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness;

for you have exalted your name and your word

above everything.a

34

8 The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;

your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.

Do not forsake the work of your hands.

Psalm 143:7-8, 11-12

7 Answer me quickly, O Lord;

my spirit fails.

Do not hide your face from me,

or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.

8 Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,

for in you I put my trust.

Teach me the way I should go,

for to you I lift up my soul.

11 For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life.

In your righteousness bring me out of trouble.

12 In your steadfast love cut off my enemies,

and destroy all my adversaries,

for I am your servant.

Psalm 145:8-9

8 The Lord is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

9 The Lord is good to all,

35

and his compassion is over all that he has made.

2. Covenant - Law

Psalm 1:2

2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law they meditate day and night.

Psalm 2

1 Why do the nations conspire,

and the peoples plot in vain?

2 The kings of the earth set themselves,

and the rulers take counsel together,

against the Lord and his anointed, saying,

3 “Let us burst their bonds asunder,

and cast their cords from us.”

4 He who sits in the heavens laughs;

the Lord has them in derision.

5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath,

and terrify them in his fury, saying,

6 “I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.”

7 I will tell of the decree of the Lord:

He said to me, “You are my son;

today I have begotten you.

36

8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,

and the ends of the earth your possession.

9 You shall break them with a rod of iron,

and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise;

be warned, O rulers of the earth.

11 Serve the Lord with fear,

with trembling 12 kiss his feet,a

or he will be angry, and you will perish in the way;

for his wrath is quickly kindled.

Happy are all who take refuge in him.

Psalm 18:21

21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord,

and have not wickedly departed from my God.

Psalm 19: 7

7 The law of the Lord is perfect,

reviving the soul;

the decrees of the Lord are sure,

making wise the simple;

Psalm 25:4-5, 8, 10, 12

37

4 Make me to know your ways, O Lord;

teach me your paths.

5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me,

for you are the God of my salvation;

for you I wait all day long.

8 Good and upright is the Lord;

therefore he instructs sinners in the way.

10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,

for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.

12 Who are they that fear the Lord?

He will teach them the way that they should choose.

Psalm 27:11

11 Teach me your way, O Lord,

and lead me on a level path

because of my enemies.

Psalm 32:8

8 I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

Psalm 67:1-2

1 May God be gracious to us and bless us

38

and make his face to shine upon us, Selah

2 that your way may be known upon earth,

your saving power among all nations.

Psalm 68:3-6

3 But let the righteous be joyful;

let them exult before God;

let them be jubilant with joy.

4 Sing to God, sing praises to his name;

lift up a song to him who rides upon the cloudsa —

his name is the Lord—

be exultant before him.

5 Father of orphans and protector of widows

is God in his holy habitation.

6 God gives the desolate a home to live in;

he leads out the prisoners to prosperity,

but the rebellious live in a parched land.

Psalm 94:12-13

12 Happy are those whom you discipline, O Lord,

and whom you teach out of your law,

13 giving them respite from days of trouble,

until a pit is dug for the wicked.

39

Psalm 99:7

7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud;

they kept his decrees,

and the statutes that he gave them.

Psalm 112:1

1 Praise the Lord!

Happy are those who fear the Lord,

who greatly delight in his commandments.

Psalm 119: 1,2, 9-16, 36-37, 40, 50, 92-93, 107, 111, 116, 154-156, 159, 164-166, 174-175

1 Happy are those whose way is blameless,

who walk in the law of the Lord.

2 Happy are those who keep his decrees,

who seek him with their whole heart,

having my eyes fixed on all your commandments.

9 How can young people keep their way pure?

By guarding it according to your word.

10 With my whole heart I seek you;

do not let me stray from your commandments.

11 I treasure your word in my heart,

40

so that I may not sin against you.

12 Blessed are you, O Lord;

teach me your statutes.

13 With my lips I declare

all the ordinances of your mouth.

14 I delight in the way of your decrees

as much as in all riches.

15 I will meditate on your precepts,

and fix my eyes on your ways.

16 I will delight in your statutes;

I will not forget your word.

36 Turn my heart to your decrees,

and not to selfish gain.

37 Turn my eyes from looking at vanities;

give me life in your ways.

40 See, I have longed for your precepts;

in your righteousness give me life.

50 This is my comfort in my distress,

that your promise gives me life.

92 If your law had not been my delight,

I would have perished in my misery.

41

93 I will never forget your precepts,

for by them you have given me life.

107 I am severely afflicted;

give me life, O Lord, according to your word.

111 Your decrees are my heritage forever;

they are the joy of my heart.

116 Uphold me according to your promise, that I may live,

and let me not be put to shame in my hope.

154 Plead my cause and redeem me;

give me life according to your promise.

155 Salvation is far from the wicked,

for they do not seek your statutes.

156 Great is your mercy, O Lord;

give me life according to your justice.

159 Consider how I love your precepts;

preserve my life according to your steadfast love.

42

164 Seven times a day I praise you

for your righteous ordinances.

165 Great peace have those who love your law;

nothing can make them stumble.

166 I hope for your salvation, O Lord,

and I fulfill your commandments.

174 I long for your salvation, O Lord,

and your law is my delight.

175 Let me live that I may praise you,

and let your ordinances help me.

Psalm 119:18

18 Open my eyes, so that I may behold

wondrous things out of your law.

Psalm 143:10

10 Teach me to do your will,

for you are my God.

Let your good spirit lead me

on a level path.

Psalm 147:20

20 He has not dealt thus with any other nation;

43

they do not know his ordinances.

Praise the Lord!

Psalm 148:6

6 He established them forever and ever;

he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.a

3. Communion - Participation

Psalm 5:11-12

11 But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;

let them ever sing for joy.

Spread your protection over them,

so that those who love your name may exult in you.

12 For you bless the righteous, O Lord;

you cover them with favor as with a shield.

Psalm 11:1

In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to me,

“Flee like a bird to the mountains;a

Psalm 18:2

2 The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,

44

my God, my rock in whom I take refuge,

my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

Psalm 20:7-9

7 Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses,

but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.

8 They will collapse and fall,

but we shall rise and stand upright.

9 Give victory to the king, O Lord;

answer us when we call.a

Psalm 27:1

1 The Lord is my light and my salvation;

whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the strongholda of my life ;

of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 33:12-17

12 Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord,

the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.

13 The Lord looks down from heaven;

he sees all humankind.

14 From where he sits enthroned he watches

all the inhabitants of the earth—

45

15 he who fashions the hearts of them all,

and observes all their deeds.

16 A king is not saved by his great army;

a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.

17 The war horse is a vain hope for victory,

and by its great might it cannot save.

Psalm 35:1-3

1 Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me;

fight against those who fight against me!

2 Take hold of shield and buckler,

and rise up to help me!

3 Draw the spear and javelin

against my pursuers;

say to my soul,

“I am your salvation.”

Psalm 37:3-4, 25, 26

3 Trust in the Lord, and do good;

so you will live in the land, and enjoy security.

4 Take delight in the Lord,

and he will give you the desires of your heart.

25 I have been young, and now am old,

yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken

46

or their children begging bread.

26 They are ever giving liberally and lending,

and their children become a blessing.

Psalm 44:3

3 for not by their own sword did they win the land,

nor did their own arm give them victory;

but your right hand, and your arm,

and the light of your countenance,

for you delighted in them.

Psalm 60:12

12 With God we shall do valiantly;

it is he who will tread down our foes.

Psalm 71:6

6 Upon you I have leaned from my birth;

it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.

My praise is continually of you.

Psalm 78: 6, 7, 11,13-14

6 that the next generation might know them,

the children yet unborn,

and rise up and tell them to their children,

7 so that they should set their hope in God,

47

and not forget the works of God,

but keep his commandments;

11 They forgot what he had done,

and the miracles that he had shown them.

13 He divided the sea and let them pass through it,

and made the waters stand like a heap.

14 In the daytime he led them with a cloud,

and all night long with a fiery light.

Psalm 80:8-9

8 You brought a vine out of Egypt;

you drove out the nations and planted it.

9 You cleared the ground for it;

it took deep root and filled the land.

Psalm 89:15, 16-27

15 Happy are the people who know the festal shout,

who walk, O Lord, in the light of your countenance;

16 they exult in your name all day long,

and extold your righteousness .

48

17 For you are the glory of their strength;

by your favor our horn is exalted.

18 For our shield belongs to the Lord,

our king to the Holy One of Israel.

19 Then you spoke in a vision to your faithful one, and said:

“I have set the crowne on one who is mighty ,

I have exalted one chosen from the people.

20 I have found my servant David;

with my holy oil I have anointed him;

21 my hand shall always remain with him;

my arm also shall strengthen him.

22 The enemy shall not outwit him,

the wicked shall not humble him.

23 I will crush his foes before him

and strike down those who hate him.

24 My faithfulness and steadfast love shall be with him;

and in my name his horn shall be exalted.

25 I will set his hand on the sea

and his right hand on the rivers.

26 He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father,

my God, and the Rock of my salvation!’

27 I will make him the firstborn,

the highest of the kings of the earth.

49

Psalm 91:1-2, 14-16

1 You who live in the shelter of the Most High,

who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,a

2 will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress;

my God, in whom I trust.”

his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.

14 Those who love me, I will deliver;

I will protect those who know my name.

15 When they call to me, I will answer them;

I will be with them in trouble,

I will rescue them and honor them.

16 With long life I will satisfy them,

and show them my salvation.

Psalm 92:12-15

12 The righteous flourish like the palm tree,

and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

13 They are planted in the house of the Lord;

they flourish in the courts of our God.

14 In old age they still produce fruit;

they are always green and full of sap,

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15 showing that the Lord is upright;

he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Psalm 99:6

6 Moses and Aaron were among his priests,

Samuel also was among those who called on his name.

They cried to the Lord, and he answered them.

Psalm 105:43-45

43 So he brought his people out with joy,

his chosen ones with singing.

44 He gave them the lands of the nations,

and they took possession of the wealth of the peoples,

45 that they might keep his statutes

and observe his laws.

Praise the Lord!

Psalm 106:3-5

3 Happy are those who observe justice,

who do righteousness at all times.

4 Remember me, O Lord, when you show favor to your people;

help me when you deliver them;

5 that I may see the prosperity of your chosen ones,

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that I may rejoice in the gladness of your nation,

that I may glory in your heritage.

Psalm 110:1, 3-4

1 The Lord says to my lord,

“Sit at my right hand

until I make your enemies your footstool.”

3 Your people will offer themselves willingly

on the day you lead your forces

on the holy mountains.a

From the womb of the morning,

like dew, your youthb will come to you .

4 The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind,

“You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”c

Psalm 118:8-14

8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord

than to put confidence in mortals.

9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord

than to put confidence in princes.

10 All nations surrounded me;

in the name of the Lord I cut them off!

11 They surrounded me, surrounded me on every side;

in the name of the Lord I cut them off!

12 They surrounded me like bees;

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they blazeda like a fire of thorns;

in the name of the Lord I cut them off!

13 I was pushed hard,b so that I was falling,

but the Lord helped me.

14 The Lord is my strength and my might;

he has become my salvation.

Psalm 122:6-9

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:

“May they prosper who love you.

7 Peace be within your walls,

and security within your towers.”

8 For the sake of my relatives and friends

I will say, “Peace be within you.”

9 For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,

I will seek your good.

Psalm 124:1-5

1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side

—let Israel now say—

2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side,

when our enemies attacked us,

3 then they would have swallowed us up alive,

when their anger was kindled against us;

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4 then the flood would have swept us away,

the torrent would have gone over us;

5 then over us would have gone

the raging waters.

Psalm 127:1-2

1 Unless the Lord builds the house,

those who build it labor in vain.

Unless the Lord guards the city,

the guard keeps watch in vain.

2 It is in vain that you rise up early

and go late to rest,

eating the bread of anxious toil;

for he gives sleep to his beloved.a

Psalm 138:8

8 The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;

your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.

Do not forsake the work of your hands.

Psalm 139:11-17

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

and the light around me become night,”

12 even the darkness is not dark to you;

the night is as bright as the day,

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for darkness is as light to you.

13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works;

that I know very well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

all the days that were formed for me,

when none of them as yet existed.

17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

Psalm 145:3, 34 ??

3 Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;

his greatness is unsearchable.

Psalm 146, 3-4

3 Do not put your trust in princes,

in mortals, in whom there is no help.

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4 When their breath departs, they return to the earth;

on that very day their plans perish.

a Cn: Heb you have exalted your word above all your name

a Cn: Meaning of Heb of verses 11b and 12a is uncertain

a Or cast up a highway for him who rides through the deserts

a Or he set a law that cannot pass away

a Gk Syr Jerome Tg: Heb flee to your mountain, O bird

a Gk: Heb give victory, O Lord; let the King answer us when we call

a Or refuge

d Cn: Heb are exalted in

e Cn: Heb help

a Traditional rendering of Heb Shaddai

a Another reading is in holy splendor

b Cn: Heb the dew of your youth

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c Or forever, a rightful king by my edict

a Gk: Heb were extinguished

b Gk Syr Jerome: Heb You pushed me hard

a Or for he provides for his beloved during sleep

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