Living the Psalms today - Sept 2025

Some of the psalms were written as much as 3,000 years ago in a world very different to our own. So how do we read them? And what does a psalm read like when we read it today? Martin Wroe reflects on what makes a psalm a psalm. Is there a distinction between psalms and prayer, or psalms and poetry? One of the challenges of reading the Psalms is that they are populated so densely with shepherds and royalty, characters that most of us do not encounter in our everyday lives. So what are the characters that walk through the psalms of our lives? And how is the divine presence disclosed to us today? Martin Wroe makes his living as a writer and volunteers as associate vicar of St Luke’s, Holloway, in north London. He contributes to BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, is a former chair of the Greenbelt Arts Festival and his most recent book of poems is 'This Heart: Poems from the universe inside'.