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Morning Meditation
May 21, 2026
Feast Day of Lydia of Thyatira
Psalm 100
Be joyful in the Lord, all you lands; *
serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his presence with a song.
2 Know this: The Lord himself is God; *
he himself has made us, and we are his;
we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.
3 Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise; *
give thanks to him and call upon his Name.
4 For the Lord is good;
his mercy is everlasting; *
and his faithfulness endures from age to age.
Meditation by Peter Vanderveen
Psalm 100 is the first psalm that I memorized (as an assignment in the private, Christian school I attended). Though my memory is a bit fuzzy, I think I memorized it in either the third or fourth grade because, to this day, whenever I read the psalm again I am transported back to the context of those elementary years. In my mind’s eye I immediately remember the particular shade of green of the classroom walls, and I seem to recover the smell of the hallways. We had lunch at our desks, and pints of milk were distributed each day. I always, strangely, have a vision of this odd detail. And I’m reminded, viscerally, of that foundational time of learning the basics: how to write (with a pencil and with proper penmanship!) and how to read and how to listen and respond – all directed toward achieving the skills of being a good and productive person. Unfailingly, Psalm 100 prompts this.
I’m not at all sure that my teachers thought that their mission was to emphasize joy; certainly not in the form that we tend to imagine it – joy as celebration or as a shared expression of evident happiness. But joy was not absent. It resided, rather, at a much deeper level, in the trust that was conveyed to us that all the world is subject to God’s providence. We might make a mess of things, but this, we learned, is not what endures. I can’t say that I remember my early school years as being fun or carefree or gleeful. Classrooms and playgrounds can be wounding in countless ways, and I struggled with this. But to this day, I still feel a profound affection for what was instilled in me then, that yet abides, regardless of all circumstance.
There is nothing complicated about this psalm. And, even more, it states that there is nothing complicated about God. God knows who God is, without having to prove anything or beat down challenges – like the duplicity we ourselves often suffer. And God’s work is creating, as an expression of relationship, which results in his care, which culminates in something as assuring as our being taken into God’s fold. We are the recipients of God’s faithfulness, which is neither circumscribed or limited. And it is this singular reality that defines our lives. It opens for us the capacity to sing and to offer praise and thanksgiving. And when this psalm acquires a place at the center of one’s life, it’s hard to have a bad or despairing day.
Memorization has sadly fallen out of fashion. Google puts almost anything at our fingertips with the push of some buttons. But there’s a world of difference between what is simply available to us and what resides, mysteriously, in our bones. I’m grateful that others took it upon themselves to make joy such an intrinsic part of my self and my perception of all that is.
Prayer
O God of love, we ask that you give us love; love in our thinking, love in our speaking, love in our doing, and love in the hidden places of our souls; love of our neighbors, near and far; love of our friends, old and new; love of those with whom we work, and love of those with whom we take our ease; love in joy, love in sorrow, love in life, and love in death; that so at length we may be worthy to dwell with you, who are eternal love. Amen.
William Temple: Archbishop of Canterbury
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