Life in the Psalms
PATRICK WOODHOUSE
(BLOOMSBURY CONTINUUM, 288 PP, £12.99)
Tablet bookshop price £11.69 • Tel 020 7799 4064

This is a rich book, one that I have recommended to many and given to friends. Patrick Woodhouse, former canon of Wells Cathedral, asks how the Psalms can speak to us now. He quotes Dom Bede Griffiths, “Unless human life today becomes centred on an awareness of a transcendent reality ... there is little hope for us.” Such an awareness, says Woodhouse, lies at the heart of these ancient texts. Above all, they should be prayed, sometimes just by taking one sentence and using it as a mantra throughout the day and when waking at night.

The Psalms tell of individuals who, amid the demands and pressures they faced, recognised their own hunger for something deeper. We, too, need to discover such a longing in our lives. We need to heed the desire for silence if we are to be led into the depths of God.