Spiritual landmarks, then and now

Title: Hidden in Plain Sight: Earthing and Unearthing the Psalms

Author: John Holdsworth 2023

Publisher: Sacristy Press

ISBN: 978-1-78959-319-8

Price: £12.99

What do the Book of Psalms and the 2023 Eurovison song contest have in common?

That is the intriguing question that open’s John Holdsworth’s new book on the psalms. Many of us know John from his time as Archdeacon of St Davids or from his insightful books on the Old Testament. In this book, like his others, he makes connections between the world in which the Old Testament books were written and our own, allowing us to see these writings, not as something difficult and distant, but the product of people who share with us some of the same dilemmas of faith and life.

He asks us to think of the whole Book of Psalms as the hymnbook of the Second Temple and imagine the people whose worship it was compiled to express. They were, he contends, living in a polarised society where the old religious certainties looked very shaky. They had experienced exile and return, hostility to their faith from both outsiders and insiders. He concludes that the psalms rebuild the people’s spiritual landmarks but also give them a space to lament, an assurance of refuge in God and the process in worship to travel from despair to hope. The people are assured that God hears prayer, will give justice, will forgive and redeem and this can help them navigate the difficulties of their society and, by analogy, our own.

Each chapter deals with a different theme across the Book of Psalms. They are titled with a quotation from our hymnbooks and concluded with a psalm-like reflection of Holdsworth’s own. The chapters are readable, full of insights from a long ministry as well as evidence of the author’s wide and deep scholarship. They are aimed at intelligent people of faith, but you do not need to be a scholar to get a great deal from them.

If, like me, you have never thought seriously about the Book of Psalms as a whole, or if you want to get greater insight into the themes of lament and refuge and how the liturgical process embedded in the psalms can speak for ordinary people of faith today, this book is well worth reading.

And the connection with Eurovision? Buy the book and find out.

Revd Canon Rhiannon Johnson