Dear Human Is A Verb Community-

In this final episode of the seven-part “Praying with Scripture and Song” series, we pray with Psalm 118, a marching psalm. I imagine a village gathering in the streets to do what Barbara Holmes calls “singing themselves sane” and what Walter Brueggemann calls “risky speech.” We need more of both right now.

Psalm 118 gives witness to people who knew what it meant to march together, to call for justice, and to remember who they are in the face of violence and injustice. These were not passive people. They were practitioners of communal lament, and they survived together under pressure for a very long time.

I am tired of the abuse of power in government, in institutions, in churches. And I know I am not alone. Neither are you.

Through Lectio Divina, breathwork, and the song “We Are Still Here,” this episode honors those of us who have been through something and are still going through something. What activists and agents of social change have long understood is that the inner life and the active life are deeply connected. You cannot have outer peace without inner peace. It is precisely when we are grounded inside that we find the capacity to raise our voices together and proclaim: we are still here.

My prayer is that this episode helps your nervous system settle, and that you find yourself joining the long procession of those who have come before us, and those who will come after, in singing what has always been true: God’s love endures forever.

A Prayer for a People Who Protest

Lord, we come to you as a people, a village from separate rooms and separate roads and separate griefs. But together in this, we are joining a prayer that has been spoken across centuries by a people who knew what it was to be threatened and to have their lives on the line, and who stood on the edge of falling and found that you were there.

So for the ones who feel hard pressed right now, whose bodies know the tight places before their minds have words for it, God, would you bring them into a spacious place? You’ve done it before, so would you do it again?

For the ones in the streets, the ones placing their bodies in the path of what they believe, you have always been found in that kind of movement. God, would you be with them? Hold what is fragile in them, protect the hope that brought them there.

And for the ones who have stopped trusting in princes, who have watched the structures they built their lives around fail to hold even when it seems to matter, God, remind them that refuge is still available, that it has always been available, that you have never moved.

For those whose grief has set up its altars in their bodies, who are carrying things they cannot yet locate or name, let something in them know a little more clearly that the village is with them in it. That they are not alone in the dark.

We are still here, still crying out, still hoping, still a village, even if we’re scattered, still singing ourselves towards something we cannot yet see. His love endures forever. His love endures forever. Amen.

About This Series

This is the seventh and final episode of “Praying with Scripture and Song,” a mini-series exploring contemplative prayer through the ancient practice of Lectio Divina. Each episode invites listeners to slow down, listen deeply, and pray with Scripture alongside music created for the journey. This series is part of Human as a Verb, a podcast about practicing the sacred work of being human—an extension of Everyday Peacemaking, a ministry built around the belief that our inner life and our relational life are deeply connected.

If you’ve missed a prayer practice in this series, you can access the first four here:

Episode 1, Soften me, Oh God: Psalm 51

Episode 2, Hiding Place: Psalm 32

Episode 3, Still Walking: Psalm 121

Episode 4, Drop Everything: Psalm 95

Episode 5, You Might Be Real: Psalm 23

Episode 6, Wait for Morning: Psalm 130

Thank you for praying with us through all seven episodes. The village keeps gathering, and we hope you’ll stay with us as Human as a Verb continues.

Connect

* Website: everydaypeacemaking.org

* Music: Link to “We Are Still Here”

Get full access to Human Is A Verb: Julene Tegerstrand, Ph.D. at humanisaverb.substack.com/subscribe