This book is a 200-page contemporary collection of contemplative meditations on the Psalms written from the Christian perspective of the author.  It is a guide for anyone interested in nurturing their prayer life, finding encouragement toward a more intimate relationship with God, and living in the world in a "still more excellent way."

I am a retired Presbyterian pastor who served congregations and their communities for over forty years. I have read, prayed, and sung the Psalms across my lifetime. In this book, I offer readers my personal reflections and responses to each of these cherished prayer-songs. 

Rather than emphasizing formal religious ritual, this book combines meditative musings and personal narrative to support spiritual growth, ethical living, and a more profound practice of faith in daily life. It is suitable for individual use, group interaction, and both personal and communal prayer. While intended primarily for adult readers, thoughtful young adults and teenagers will find it meaningful and helpful as well.

This book is a companion text to engaging the Psalms themselves with an invitation to readers to make, if desired, their own reflective entries in their own personal spiritual journal.  But one also may read my reflections standing alone, following up on those that particularly speak to the reader by referring to those psalms directly.  Finally, though I did not intend it while I was writing, as I re-read the finished book I realized that, taken collectively, these psalm meditations comprise my Confession of Christian Faith in my seventy-first year.  It is what I have come to believe about God, our lives, and life in the world in light of the ministry of Jesus Christ, who himself prayed these Psalms.  Perhaps it will help readers to take stock of their own faith at this time in their lives.

Thank you for considering joining me in this journey through the biblical Psalms.  If my engagement with the Psalms as related in this book's meditations offers you inspiration to come to know and to love God more "clearly, dearly, and nearly," I shall be pleased for, then, you also will come to know and to love yourself and all of your "neighbors" in the same way.  (TAS)