Mulled Psalms

Mulled Psalms is a book of poetry. Using the metaphor of mulled cider or wine, it is a collection of carefully brewed, distilled, and spiced beverages. The basic ingredient in each of these 150 poems is the biblical psalm of the corresponding number. Thus, the length, subject, tone, and other aspects of a specific poem resemble that of the original psalm. Because each psalm was mulled individually, at varying times and temperatures of Spirit-fire, each comes alive as a new entity. Many are prayers. All address or relate to God, the ultimately unnamable one, whom all humans yearn to know and name. Capital letters are used for all nouns and pronouns, and for many other parts of speech, referring to God. '""Mull' means ponder, reflect, contemplate. Here's a life-giving invitation to the Bible's 'prayer book'--to meditate on all the stuff of life's experiences: your lures and longings, your angst and anger, your hopes and hungers. Marjorie Gray has not done all the mulling for you, but draws you to your own pondering and psalming. Such honest-to-God praying will surely make a difference in your relationships."" --Kent Ira Groff, author of Honest to God Prayer ""Gray has clearly lived long and prayerfully with the 150 biblical psalms, mulling over the core message and emotion of each psalm, letting it simmer within her. Here, she gives poetic expression to her mullings. So instead of the biblical psalmists speaking to us across the ages, we have here a fellow contemporary, speaking our own language, sharing our contemporary spirituality."" --Peggy Rosenthal, author of Praying through Poetry ""Marjorie Gray's compressed, muscular language consistently startles into insight. Intriguingly fresh, yet biblical, names for God and thoughtfully modernized images challenge the reader to enter these ancient poems as living, ever-renewing texts. Gray's achievement here is remarkable and rare on both a literary and devotional level. So psalm lovers will surely want Mulled Psalms on their shelves as a resource for study, prayer, and worship. But this is also a winsome volume for readers who have not yet fallen into the psalms, who have wondered what all the fuss is about."" --Debra Rienstra, author of So Much More ""The psalms are strange and beautiful old prayers. Gray knows them intimately. She inhabits them fully--and with her own fine skills as a poet, resurrects them in language a 21st century person might use to pray. This is a book to be savored and cherished by anyone looking for new life in Scripture and by anyone struggling to pray."" --Debbie Blue, author of From Stone to Living Word A lifelong revealer in creation and Scripture, Marjorie Gray aspires to three supporting roles: homemaker, poem-maker, and peacemaker. She published a devotional book, Mulled Words: A Word a Week from God's Word (2009). An earlier draft of Mulled Psalms: Moving from I to We, with introduction by Peggy Rosenthal, was published in 2011.