Cyberpsalms and calligraphy

The calligraphy pictured here is by Debra Brand from her extraordinary book of The Song of Songs: the Honeybee in the Garden. It's a meticulous and beautiful work and she followed it up with equally sumptuous illuminations of the Psalms in I Will Wake the Dawn. This sort of calligraphy is way beyond my own folksy attempts.

It was David Ker's launch of his "Psalterium Cyberium" for illuminators, readers and illustrators of his own first fifty cyber psalms that led me to discover Debra's modern Hebrew calligraphy. I enjoy and often feel challenged by David's modern cyberpsalms, he uses poweful everyday language and concerns in a psalm-like way. You can read the cyberpsalms here. David says this in his introduction to the project:
This project is an exercise in experimental psalmody. Through these cyber-psalms I’m trying to answer the question, "What would the psalms sound like if they were written in modern times by a modern David?"

Cyberpsalm 3 is called "The blogger's prayer" and begins,
"You, Lord, are sovereign over the blogosphere.
There is no place on the web where you cannot be found and praised."

I think it works rather better than the Evangelical Alliance's recent release of the 10 commandments of blogging. I also particularly like Cyberpsalm 16, available in German too, here's an extract:

The Bible! We talk it. Interpret it.
Sell it and worship it. But read it, no!
Silent it sits in a screaming world.
Shouted down and drowned out.

So do get drawing, writing, reading and podcasting. This modern-day David needs our encouragement to make it to 150 cyberpsalms.