Closing Out the Year with Praise

At the end of the longest book of the Bible--a compilation over centuries, covering just about every human emotion and experience one can imagine--the Psalms conclude with a simple, all-encompassing song of praise. All instruments, all planes of existence, everything that has breath, ends up praising the Lord.

I have a complicated relationship with praise. Too often it seems disingenuous: emotional manipulation. Wallpapering over how you really feel in favor of happier, prettier, sunnier sentiments. That's not what praise is supposed to be.

I was a teenager when the show "Daria" was on MTV. In her sharp, cynical sarcasm, I found a kindred spirit: a person who sees through the pretenses and false optimism all around her. I, too, was the kid at the "pep rallies" in high school, surrounded by classmates whipped into an energetic frenzy, wondering, "what's the point?"

Imagine my surprise as a sarcastic smart-aleck of a 16-year-old, to see myself today, as an adult mentor for a music team of teenagers for Lutheran youth events in our synod, who lead hundreds of their peers in loud, enthusiastic praise: "Praise the Lord with the Trumpet Sound!"...
  

It's interesting to me that Christian music led by guitars, drums, bass and keyboards is so often classified as "Praise music." Firstly, I've known some organists who can praise the Lord like no other! And secondly, if we're trying to lead God's people in worship, we need to speak other languages than the language of praise. If all we ever sing are happy, "Tradin' My Sorrows," "Jesus is my boyfriend" style songs, then our praise does indeed ring hollow. 

Precisely what I love about the collection of the psalms is that it does express a wide range of human emotions. Despair, rage, love, anticipation, longing, lament, impatience, relief, and awe sit side by side, in a colorful mural of the human experience much wider than what we tend to express on Sunday morning, whether you're singing traditional hymns or "praise" music. That's one reason I love being part of a congregation that reads the psalms out loud together each week, even when the sentiments expressed there are not considered part of "polite" conversation. 

In a year that has been quite a roller coaster--both for our society as a whole and for me personally--it is an interesting thing to finish with praise. There have certainly been days of "How Long, O Lord?" and of "Deliver me, Lord." There have been days of "Have mercy on me, O Lord", and "What are mortals, O Lord, that you take notice of them?" And because we know how hard and frustrating and miserable life can be, it gives depth to our praise. When we know how cruel and fickle and selfish humans can be, we lift God's name all the higher, knowing only God can save us. We praise differently in the hard years than in the easy years, because praise is not the same thing as being happy with our situation. Praise is acknowledging God as the One from whom all good things come, who is making all things new, whether or not we always feel or see the newness. 

And so, on the last day of 2016, I praise the Lord. I join the firmament, and the lute and the harp, and the trumpet,  the tambourine and dance, and everything that breathes, and I praise God, not because I am always happy, but because however I'm feeling, God is still good. 

God, you are good, and I praise you now and every day. I praise you for the good things you have brought into my life this year, and for the good things that are coming next year. I praise you because in the hard times you have been with me, through friends and people I love, and through your Word which moves my heart. I praise you, Lord, because I have breath in my lungs, and even that is a gift from you. Today and every day, I praise you.