I used to be a youth pastor.
I don’t know that I ever should have been a youth pastor. I don't know if I was a good youth pastor. I resisted the conventional models of being a youth pastor and that was often in conflict with my role as a paid employee of a church that had particular values and goals.
After a couple of years in the throes of church employment, I was already feeling the fatigue of living in the constant tension of youth ministry, the expectations and criticisms of other in the church, and looming self-doubt that plagued my ability to lead well. I’m sure others in the church from both inside and outside the youth ministry could share differing perspectives.
For me, it didn’t take long to find that my evolving personal convictions and vision were growing less compatible with the values and goals of the church that employed me. We were cultivating a space where kids could hopefully be seen and heard, navigating the infancy of their faith with honesty and without fear of judgement. The growth was in the depth of the kids who found a home in our youth ministry, not necessarily in the number of kids and flashy events that we held. Those things didn’t interest me and eventually the strain of others’ incompatible expectations began to eat away at me.
The words of Psalm 63 rose to find me during this time and they fell on me like a healing balm. “My soul thirsts,” and “my body longs,” expressed the hopeful longing I was feeling in my emotional exhaustion. The meditation of love that is “better than life” were a promise that rang both true and unimaginable. Is that possible? What does that even mean?
At that time, I can’t remember ever being captivated by the words of any of biblical poetry quite like I was with Psalm 63. I wrote out the text and posted it over my desk in the church office that I shared. It wasn’t long after that I was fitting the words into a singable melody, my preferred method of meditation. I recorded it and included it on a compact disc I created and titled, Free Duckies for Everyone. Because, why not?
A few years back I wrote an addendum verse reflecting on the last few chilling lines of the psalm that I had neglected when writing the song. You know the ones about people being given over to the sword and becoming food for jackals. I performed the revised version for one of my seminary classes.
I even performed “Psalm 63” for my dad’s ordination ceremony back in 2011 at the church where I grew up. This arrangement is pretty much how the song was originally conceived…
Psalm 63 - Southminster Presbyterian Church, August 14, 2011
Over the last three years I’ve been writing Psalm-songs like this for meditation and singing in our worship liturgy at The Table Indy where I serve as song writer and musical point-person. I had yet to share my Psalm 63 song at The Table until it showed up among the lectionary readings a couple of weeks ago. I took the opportunity to tweak the arrangement and lyrics ever so slightly to reflect the Women’s Lectionary by Dr. Wilda Gafney that we’ve been using during this liturgical year.
The following week, I took the super mega hi-fi phone recording I used to demo the song to my band, and spiced it up in GarageBand with some added vocals and piano flourishes. I am continuing to find joy and life in this song that felt so personally important for me to compose almost twenty years ago.
Psalm 63 - 2023 demo
O God, you are my God, You are my God Sincerely, I seek you, My soul thirsts for you My flesh hungers, too In a dry and weary land Where there is no water I have beheld your face in the sanctuary, And seen your power and glory Because Your love is better than life, My lips will praise Your name Because Your love is better than life, As long as I am alive Will I lift my hands and bless you by name My soul satisfied, my mouth never dry As I sing praises to you You are my hope I sing beneath the shadow of your wings You hold me up with your right hand So that my soul may cling to you
Really like the new version of this psalm ❤️