Praying with Walter Brueggemann

Praying the Psalms depends on two things: (1) what we find when we come to the Psalms that is already there; and (2) what we bring to the Psalms out of our own lives. [W]hen we come to the Psalms we shall find their eloquence and passion and boldness in addressing the Holy One. [W]hat we bring to the Psalter in order to pray is a candid openness to the extremities in our own lives and in the lives of others, extremities that recognize the depths of despair and death, that acknowledge the sheer gift of life.

The work of prayer is to bring these two realities together – the boldness of the Psalms and the extremity of our experience – to let them interact, play with each other, tease each other. The work of prayer consists in the imaginative use of language to give the extremities their full due and to force new awareness and new configuration of the reality by the boldness of speech. All this is to submit to the Holy One in order that we may be addressed by a Word that out-distances all our speech.

Walter Brueggemann, Praying the Psalms: Engaging Scripture and the Life of the Spirit, 17.