Pause: Spending Lent with the Psalms

Lent is an ideal time to step back and reflect on the deeper movements of the spirit, and Elizabeth Caldwell helps readers do this through a simple but profound approach. Pause: Spending Lent with the Psalms invites us to take up the spiritual practice of encountering, sinking into, and deeply engaging with one psalm each week during Lent and Holy Week.

The season of Lent encourages Christians to consider a different pace—one of slowing down, noticing, pausing—than what our dominant culture values. The invitation to pause with the Psalms begins on Ash Wednesday, starting with a mark of ashes on our foreheads that reminds us that in spite of our failures—things we have done or failed to do—we belong to God. Readers are then guided into an exploration of Psalm 51 and the theme of a clean heart. Each chapter helps readers to connect an image drawn from that psalm, such as paths, faces, blessing, tables, waiting, thanksgiving, listening, being alone or abandoned, and hands, with their own lives. At the close of each chapter, readers are invited to try a different prayer practice to help them continue to reflect on the theme and psalm each day. This intentional engagement—without feeling burdensome—opens just enough space and time for a creative spiritual practice to flourish, sustaining the life of faith during the Lenten season in ways that can make a difference in God’s world.

Reflection and discussion questions are included with each chapter The book includes a leader's guide at the end for study groups. Download more resources for group study, sermon series, and worship services, including illustrated visual aids, at www.wjkbooks.com/Pause.

© 2024 Westminster John Knox Press (Ebook): 9781646983711

Release date

Ebook: 2 January 2024