Faith, Joy, Life, Prayer, Scripture, Spirituality

What is my Psalm?

Biking around my NASA affiliated Houston neighborhood is one of my simple joys. When neighbors ask if we’re “the family that bikes to Church,” I smile with delight and gratitude. Yes. Yes, we are.

Honestly, this isn’t something that I would instinctively insert into my daily prayer. Yet, studying the Psalms has prompted me to ask at any given moment: What is my Psalm? This simple question helps integrate prayerful conversation with God into the ordinary moments of daily life.

To pray in the style of the Psalms – or to pray using the words of the Psalms themselves – it’s helpful to know a little background.

The Book of Psalms is a collection of prayers and songs from throughout Israel’s history. They are prayerful responses to real, specific life experiences. And as varied as our life experiences may be on any given day, so are the Psalms! This variety and connection to life is why the Psalms were so often sung and prayed in worship by the ancient Israelites, sung and prayed by Jesus and the apostles, and continue to be sung and prayed by us today.

Acknowledging simple joys with a Psalm of Praise is a beautiful way to recognize God’s presence in all things.

How?

Begin by inviting praise, such as: “Let us praise God!” Then articulate the specific reasons for praising God in that moment. And conclude by recapping the praise.

Look at how Psalm 117 – which is the shortest Psalm, with only two verses – provides a great example of this basic structure:

As I bike through my neighborhood, if I were to use the words from Scripture, I might recite the final verse of Psalm 150

But the beautiful gift of the Psalms is how they also teach us how to pray our own Psalm of Praise.

Praise God

For my adorable green bike

For its form and its function

and its matching green basket

For the ability to ride

For my wonderful neighborhood

For biking to the homes of friends,

to fun at the pool,

to Church,

to Starbucks,

to CVS.

For the opportunities I have

to share this with my family

whom I love

For all that I have; for all that I am,

Praise God

Ask yourself: What is my Psalm? And then say it, write it, sing it, pray it.

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Read More Julie Dienno-Demarest Sep 10,2018

Article, Questions, Scripture

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Have You Ever Wondered: Why the Different Bibles?

Did you know that Catholics use a slightly different Bible than other Christian denominations? Have you ever wondered why?

Why the Differences?

A brief recap Jewish history to get some context:

Around 1280 BC, Moses led the Chosen people to the Promised Land
King David reigned around 1000 BC
In 721 BC the Northern Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians
In 586 BC the Southern Kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians

As each kingdom fell, the Jews were exiled and scattered–or dispersed (“diaspora“)–around the region. In the Diaspora following the fall of the Southern Kingdom, many Jews settled in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, which was immersed in Greek language and culture. After about fifty years, the Persian Ruler, Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem, but a whole generation had been born and raised while living in foreign lands, many of whom chose to stay. As time passed and more Diaspora Jews spoke Greek, there was a desire to have a copy of the Jewish Sacred Scriptures translated into the Greek language.

Legend has it that 72 scholars set out to translate the Scriptures from Hebrew to Greek. The Greek word for seventy is “septuaginta,” which is why this translation is known as the Septuagint [sep-tue-ah-jint]. It was completed around 100 BC and was widely used by Jews outside of Jerusalem.

So then the New Testament came to be:

The life, ministry, parables, teachings, miracles, crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus happened around 30-33AD.
The Letters of Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude were written to various Christian communities in the years that followed the Resurrection.
These Letters were so profoundly powerful that they got passed around from community to community while the stories of Jesus were told and retold orally.
Eventually the Gospels were written down and passed around as well.
Since most people spoke and wrote in Greek, the Gospels and Letters were also composed in Greek.

Although the New Testament itself was written in Greek, since Jesus and the Apostles lived and traveled in and around Jerusalem and Judea, they probably did not use the Septuagint when they read from scrolls. They probably used scrolls written in Hebrew and Aramaic. Which brings us to the next part of the story…

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Read More Julie Dienno-Demarest Oct 3,2014

Action, Article, Faith, Love, Scripture, Service

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Help Me Remember

The last week of August is the first week of school in our area. The Friday before school started, the boys and I returned from four weeks of traveling and visiting family (New York, New England, China, and Malaysia… including the rides to and from the airports, the trip home took 42 hours). We spent the first week of school recovering from jet lag and readjusting to home, schedules, and packing lunches. Things were chaotic and everyone was exhausted, but we were slowly-but-surely finding our way back to normal.

Mid-morning Thursday on that first week of school, my sister called with an urgent request. Laurie is the Executive Coordinator for both SafePlace (an organization focused on ending sexual and domestic violence through safety, healing, prevention and social change) and Austin Children’s Services (ACS offers protection and healing to children who have experienced abuse and neglect).

ACS has received eight children this week, and our clothing closet is empty. Three brothers came in late last night with nothing but the clothes on their backs…and they are going to be here for a while. Do you have any clothes that you could donate for these three boys? We need size 3T/4T and size 5/6, as well as size 9 shoes.

Sorting through clothes to make a donation was not on my to-do list. It wasn’t even on my radar. But I didn’t even hesitate; of course we can help! We live in Houston and were planning to visit Austin for the weekend. I had a little over 24 hours. As I went through the closets and bins of clothes, I found a lot of 5/6 clothes but I had already passed the 3T/4T on to my nephews.

So I reached out to five local friends who also had boys. Not one hesitated. Every single one of them found something to donate – with apologies: “sorry it couldn’t be more…” The generosity was overwhelming. We barely had room in the trunk for our luggage.

Recall a time when you were asked to help someone in need. What happened?

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Read More Julie Dienno-Demarest Sep 30,2014

Divine Providence, Faith, Friendship, Grace, Scripture

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Seek and You Shall Find

Last week, during heavy rains and flash flood warnings, my living room flooded. The exterior drain got clogged and water seeped in, drenching the carpet and padding. I only discovered it because a meeting I was supposed to be preparing for got postponed. So while the kids took care of their afternoon responsibilities, I emptied the dish-drying rack and tidied the kitchen. When I walked along the far side of the living room to place a special platter back in its display holder, I felt the squish of puddling water in the wet carpet beneath my feet.

My first call was to my husband (the iPhone tells me I made the 16-second call at 3:23pm). His office is a mile from home, so he arrived within six minutes. In that time, my boys and I grabbed every towel in the linen closet to sop up the mess. That’s when I texted my network of friends.

Within moments of texting each request, different friends responded telling me they had what I needed. Within 90 minutes of discovering the flooding, I had everything I needed to fix the problem, including a neighbor who came over to help my husband snake the exterior drain–all without spending a dime.

In response to this situation, I had a choice. I could either focus on the frustration of the flooding or I could be amazed by how quickly everyone responded. I could be annoyed by the clogged drain or touched by the outpouring of kindness, generosity, and availability of the friends in my community. I could obsess about the potential for the problem’s recurrence or I could be grateful for every aspect of the solution.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7)

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Read More Julie Dienno-Demarest Sep 23,2014

Faith, Grace, Hope, Scripture

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Waiting…

I struggle with Waiting. Patience is not my strongest virtue.

I’m not talking about the banalities of waiting in traffic or waiting behind a check-writer in the check-out line of the grocery store.

I’m talking about Waiting to hear news about a job in the midst of unemployment. Waiting for a diagnosis. Waiting for that life-changing email or phone call. Waiting for a response.

Waiting for more information so that you can move beyond the gazillion choose-your-own-adventure style possibilities in your head and actually start doing the “next thing,” whatever that may be.

Most recently, this Waiting sat like a ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. My boys got sick while we were visiting my parents in Malaysia.

When my younger one gets sick, it’s always been no-energy with a scary-high fever for the first 24 hours. After that first 24-hours, the high fever always breaks and then, I can tell whether it’s worthy of a doctor’s visit or just a passing bug. My older one has a similar cycle, but the high-fever isn’t quite so scary. It was only a 24 hour wait. I have waited longer for other things, but this was my children… in another country… it was just hard.

Waiting is hard.

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Read More Julie Dienno-Demarest Sep 16,2014

Category : Scripture

What is my Psalm?

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Have You Ever Wondered: Why the Different Bibles?

Why the Differences?

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Help Me Remember

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Seek and You Shall Find

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Waiting…

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