North Coast based Presbyterian (USA) minister Rev Kiran Young Wimberly will be singing the psalms' praises at upcoming TEDxStormont event

Presbyterian (USA) minister, musician, podcaster (psalmsforthespirit.substack.com), spiritual director and retreat and pilgrimage leader, who has been living in Ballycastle for the last seven years.

Indeed, such is Kiran’s abiding love for the psalms and for music, that some years ago she joined forces with a family of musicians from Dungannon, The McGraths, and with them has recorded four Celtic Psalms albums (www.celticpsalms.com) (Celtic Psalms Vol. 1, Celtic Psalms: The Lord’s My Shepherd Vol. 2, Celtic Psalms: Rest in the Shelter Vol. 3, and Celtic Psalms: May We Rise Vol.4).

The psalms are set to traditional Irish and Scottish melodies and the group has performed in Ireland and in North America, with their music featured on national TV and radio.

And on January 20, Kiran, 44, will share her passion for the psalms at TEDxStormont as it returns to Parliament Buildings with a stellar line up of speakers.

Without giving away any spoilers, Kiran said her talk is going to be about her journey of what the psalms have meant to her over the years.

"Particularly about the journey of realising that the psalms are a resource for people to find a sense of balance in their lives when things are in upheaval, that they're a resource for finding hope in difficult times. Also, that there are many tools out there for us to find regulation and balance and resilience and restoration, and the psalms are actually a tool that we can use. I’ll also be focusing a bit more generally on the poetry, the music and the spirituality that are all woven together within that and that brings us a sense of restoration.”

Kiran says she’s had many favourite psalms during her lifetime.

“I've been kind of obsessed with them for a long time. There are ones that I would come back to again and again, some of them I've set to music now. I would bring up those psalms in my head. They're a lot easier for me to remember when they're set to songs. I can call to mind any 44 psalms I have arranged. That really is a gift to me to be able to remember them because I don't have to open the Book of the Psalms, I have them in my head.

“A favourite would be Psalm 63, which says ‘my soul longs for you like a dry land’ – that was something that really spoke to me at different times when I felt weary and exhausted. Also, ‘as the

deer longs for streams of water so my soul longs for you’ – it’s a similar type of psalm, but those have stood out to me. And, ‘the God of Jacob is our hope, our a refuge in times of trouble when the mountains are falling into the heart of the sea’ – in times of upheaval, that would be a good one to turn to.

"There's so many. There are joyful ones. There are hopeful ones. Probably the ones that I have been drawn to have been more along the lines of longing for some sort of restoration or refreshment at times when I've been weary or depleted in the past.”

What she is particularly drawn to is the ‘honesty’ of the psalms.

“What I've been exploring over the past few years is what is actually helpful about the psalms and I think one of the main things is the honesty about them, that they just say, well, this is how I feel…..and that is healing. You feel like there are other people who felt that way before in the past. It can give you hope, that there's something other than the difficult things are going on around you and that there's still beauty there.”

Faith has always played a huge part in Kiran’s life.

“We grew up going to church and I've always loved that. I had a spirituality of my own from a young age, so that was where I developed this love for the psalms and I read them on my own in the privacy of my room. Spirituality has always been a big thing for me.”

Music has also played a huge role in Kiran’s life (she sings, plays guitar and ‘some’ piano).

“I have been a musician for a long time and always loved traditional and folk music. And when I was living in Belfast I started to get involved in learning traditional Irish and Scottish music. Before that I recorded some albums of folk music with a friend of mine in the States.

“When I moved here I was really hoping to hear a bit more of that style of music in the worship setting, in churches, but I realised that that really wasn't done very much and I wasn't really sure why.”

Kiran heard the McGrath family singing, loved their harmonies, and eventually they all got together to record.

“That was 10 years ago and it just ended up being such an amazing experience for all of us. And the album was really successful. It was produced by Donal O'Connor, the composer, music producer and TV presenter and creative director of Belfast TradFest. And we have four albums now.“The McGraths and I have just continued to sing together and become really dear friends and we have travelled to the States on five different tours and have sung a lot here as well."

Kiran said they’ve received a lot of positive feedback from people who have been helped by the power of music and the psalms, specifically set to music.

“We've heard back from a lot of people that the music that we've put out has really helped them through some difficult times.

"They say they turn on the music and it calms and soothes them. It can accompany people through the ups and downs of life. That's just a real privilege to hear.”

In terms of the mechanics of the songs, Kiran said she draws on her ministerial and theological training and background to rewrite the psalms in a way that can be sung and fit the tune.

“The work that I put into it has been on the song writing side. I've also arranged and co-arranged the songs with these other musicians, but initially the writing of the lyrics and everything has been what I've really put my creative effort into,

"There's a bit of interpretation that goes on, I have paraphrased and also rewritten the psalms in a way that that we can sing them. I've picked out and highlighted parts of the psalms that I want to focus on and maybe in the process of song writing, you end up having a refrain that you repeat…..singing and music is a really good way to remember words.

"So if we want to try to remember the psalms, music is a good way to do that.”

Rev Kiran Young Wimberly is married to fellow minister, Rev. Dr. Alexander Wimberly and they have three children aged 15, 13 and 11.

The family live in Ballycastle, which Kiran ’adores’.“It’s beautiful. I just look out at the sea every day. I can see it from my window and I walk everyday by the beach. I also like swimming over the winter. It's so refreshing.”

Originally from New Jersey, US, Kiran grew up internationally, including in Japan and India as her parents were Presbyterian Church USA missionaries.

She met her husband in Princeton, New Jersey, after he'd spent a year in Belfast.

"My husband’s parents had lived in Northern Ireland when he was young. He then became a student minister at a church in Belfast. I met him right when he got back from that and he was all aglow about how wonderful Northern Ireland was.

"A few years later we came to visit and then he was offered a job at the church where he had been a student minister. I was also looking for my first position as a minister and then I was offered a position at a different church, so we both came to work at churches in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. We lived here for about seven years and then went back to the States for about four years as we were doing further studies. And then we we just felt this draw to come back to Northern Ireland. Although our families were in the States this had become home for us – we had community and had done a lot of our professional life here and our kids were all born here.

“And so then we had the opportunity to come back and be involved with Corrymeela. We first started off as volunteers and then Alex went on to staff. I am a member of the Corrymeela community and have been doing freelance work as a minister."

Kiran also hosts Psalms for the Spirit, a podcast on spirituality and resilience through the lens of the psalms.

“The podcast came about after just after COVID began, because I had taken a training in resilience. This is secular training, but what I found in it was that there was a connection with certain things that I saw to be present in the psalms, like poetry and music and spirituality were all mentioned as ways that people can find resilience in their lives. So I became really curious about starting to talk to people about how the psalms had helped them through difficult times. And this came about during COVID because obviously we were going through a kind of collective trauma as a globe,

“Then it developed into just a hearing people's stories about how certain psalms have helped them through a time of stress or a time of difficulty of some kind. And so the podcast has been a chance to talk about what brings us resilience, and to hear about certain psalms that have been meaningful to people and how they've come through and what brings us joy and strengthens hope and resilience.”

Kiran also leads regular retreats from Corrymeela and pilgrimages around Ireland for international visitors.

"The retreats are open to people from different religious and spiritual backgrounds, and they're a chance for people to come together and share from their own spiritual traditions and learn from each other and be enriched by each other. We have a stillness retreat coming up next month, and it’s just a way to bring people together to to meet each other and to share that space together, but also for them to take their own private time to get refreshed and restored and feel they can handle what comes their way when they go back to their lives.”