A Turbulent Peace: The Psalms for Our Time

I used this book as my devotional, reading one of the Psalms commentaries each morning. I have just finished the 150th. This book is good for readers of any denomination. It appears a work of this sort would take a lot of research, but maybe not so with this knowledgeable author who has covered religion as a Nashville reporter for almost two decades. Ray's writing is clever, contemporary and easy to understand and I enjoyed the personal reflections. He'll take everyday sights like outdoor signs and relate them to a Psalm, as he did in Psalm 72, my favorite of the commentaries. I benefited so much from this book that I have bought three more as gifts for friends and family.

The author of this new book is a friend of mine who was a longtime Religion editor for "The Tennessean" who has taken time out from the world of daily journalism to write this meditation on the Psalms.Whenever you have a friend who goes to the trouble of the longer discipline which is book writing you can't help be curious as to what they will write about as well as how.Will Campbell's blurb description as 'down to earth' seems the most accurate assessment.This is not a work of scholarship or history but a personal response to the Psalms as wisdom literatur.Like much wisdom literature the Psalms are a turbulence looking for the peace that either is or passes the understanding.So much of the turbulence of the individual Jew in ancient Israel seems bound up to the national vulnerability that the contemporary American lilving in fortress American would seem to have little in common with, at least until the events of 9/11.One of the most common reflections found in this work is the cultural gulf between then and now and here and there.This seems the beginning of any consideration of the Psalms and the Bible in general.The author speaks in his page on Psalm 24 about grandeur and the need for a "fit language'and manages to find a middle path between poetry and prose in his commentary on each of the 150 Psalms. My favorite page is the reflection of the 129 Psalm entitled "Peace Be with You" writing on the 'exchanging the peace' practice where people greet those nearby in the middle of the church service by shaking their hand and exchanging personal greetings which I once experienced when attending a church service I had been invited to attend with the Author and which I very much wanted to ask Ray about but had forgotten to afterwards.I had not heard or experience this before and thought it a delightful thing.I learned from this memoir it is becoming more common.

This well-written book avoids the false piety and inaccessibility ofmany religion books by offering a relevant take on each of the 150 Psalms. Waddle keeps each of his essays on the Psalms to one page, making this a wonderful book to dip in and out of, or read in a one-a-day fashion. This approach makes the topic accessible and keeps the topic from overwhelming the reader. The writer has done his research, but this book isn't a scholarly study of the Psalms -- and that's refreshing.Instead, it's a string of down-to-earth, present-day reflections on this popular book of the Bible, and how the Psalms speak to contemporary culture and religious trends. Waddle includes personal reflections and historical research to put the Psalms in a context anyone can understand. That's what makes this book great for anyone of any denomination. It's a thoughtful book that would be great to give as a gift for anyone looking to delve a little deeper in this popular book of the Bible.