Half Fast Living @gaillardiapress.com

This is yet another longish psalm of war; however, it’s remarkable for one big difference from the others so far — this psalmist admits that his nation ain’t what it used to be on the battlefield and that his people have become “a reproach to our neighbors, / A scorn and a derision to those all around us” and “a byword among the nations, / A shaking of the head among the peoples.” Huh.

This guy starts out like the blowhard who brags that the United States has never lost a war. But then someone whips out their trusty cell phone and fact-checks him in real time on Wikipedia. It says the USA has lost — that’s right, lost — 11 wars and has been involved in 11 others whose outcomes were inconclusive. And some losses and draws occurred long before the Korean War.

So this psalmist must face the truth — something our boastful bigmouth will never do — and he questions why all this rotten luck has befallen him and his people. I’m the same warrior poet I’ve always been, he says. We all follow every inscrutable rule we’re supposed to, he says. And still we’re “killed all day long; / We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Uh, everyone but him.

When it comes to politics, I’m right that some populist movements are just plain wrong. In fact, what’s called Christian nationalism really isn’t Christian at all. As for another disgusting movement, I agree with the psalmist’s words: “Oh, deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!” And you know exactly who he means.

When the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth finally comes to light, the good people will return to that shining city on a hill; and they will occupy our most sacred secular house, and live out the true meaning of the creed, “This land was made for you and me.” Maybe we, the people, will get it right again.

Like the doe that saunters from the woods to feed at our crabapple tree, I hunger to know what lies before me. Will my last season on this earth begin with feasting but end in famine? Will the wholly universal spirit take a notion to greet me as if I were a tiny raindrop falling into the ocean?

I used to go to church, where I sat in the congregation, sang the hymns, shouted my praise and “thank-you’s,” and every once in a while took some bread in hand and then washed it down with a song and a prayer. But this communion was by rote, as the crusty host never showed his face.

I decided to seek the iSoul in the verdant river valley, on the highest windswept peak, and in the piedmont where one can easily see both hill and dell. I look and listen for the kindred spirit in the mountain waterfall and in the ocean waves that rise, curl and break on the sand at my bare feet.

In the light of day, I celebrate the beauty of the universe with my fading eyesight and cloth-eared hearing. In the darkness of my chamber at night, I reimagine all that I have ever seen and heard under the sun; I consider my deer friend, the doe; and I dream of another day I may never know.

Here’s another psalm — this one thankfully short — about an untrustworthy friend and more dependable enemies. It’s also about news of a famous man’s death being greatly exaggerated in the social media of the day.

This guy is in such bad shape that even his best buddy, with whom he has broken bread, lies about him. With a friend like that, it’s easy then for his enemies to spread misinformation and make people believe conspiracy theories.

The poor fellow just wants to get well enough to put them all in their places — his friend and his enemies alike. He’s actually a solid dude. He helps the poor. He has integrity. And even though he’s definitely ailing, he ain’t dead yet.

Do you ever try and try to get some special person to notice you, and when they finally do, you feel as if you’ve been pulled up out of quicksand and set down safely on solid ground?

You want to throw back your head and sing that person’s praises. You want others to hear about this golden guy or girl. You want to write a love song and sing it loud and sing it strong.

And you hope against hope that they — the singular “they” — will always and forever be a part of your life, that they’ll always be there to share your care, comfort, love and inspiration.

But other people are digging for that gold, too, and some will do anything — lie, cheat, steal — to take it away from you. Your only shot is to keep singing, even if it becomes the blues.

I can hold my tongue for only so long. I kept my lip buttoned once and just about blew my stack. It was much worse when I opened up.

One little life is nothing compared to the sum of all our kindred spirits. It’s one small step for man; one giant leap for the homo sapiens.

We are mere shadows on the earth, our days in the sun giving way to night much too soon. We are puffs of dust on the face of the moon.

Why are we here? I want to know — like Job — because I didn’t ask to be ground down to a stubby nub. Or to feel like a fart in the wind.

Don’t laugh. I’m being serious. If I’m lying, I’m dying — even when I tell the truth. What’s the frequency? I’m walkin’ here; I’m walkin’ here.

As we grow old and our health fails, we look for someone to blame for the shape we’re in.

And the more problems we have, the more likely we are to blame the universe for it all.

But health isn’t a matter of good or bad luck, well- or ill-favored correlation to the cosmos.

It’s the same way with one’s place in society, whether the average person is liked or hated.

Only unnatural predicaments are undeserved. For everything natural there is a good reason.

This is another long, repetitious psalm that keeps saying bad people will be punished and good people will be protected here on earth. We’re supposed to be patient, though, if “the man who brings wicked schemes to pass” appears to be getting ahead. Don’t get mad, the psalmist says; don’t be bad; and don’t worry about the evil schemer. Why not? Because “it only causes harm.”

Now, I did learn one other thing from reading this psalm. I’ve noticed familiar references in other psalms, but when I read the line, “the meek shall inherit the earth,” in this 37th iteration, I said to myself, “Aha! I’ve seen that line somewhere else!” That phrase — repeated ten verses later — is the most famous blessing in the most famous sermon by the most famous preacher in the world.

Before some apologist says, “Ah, but this reference is merely prophetic,” just like all those other things that appear in the Old Testament hundreds of years before Jesus of Nazareth says them or does them in the Gospels of the New Testament, I submit that a defender of the faith like that isn’t giving smart little Yeshua ben Yosef credit for being the A+ student of Hebrew that he was.

What’s that saying about the simplest explanation usually being the correct one? Occum’s razor, it’s called, or the principle of parsimony — in other words, the best explanation is usually the one requiring the fewest assumptions. So, don’t ask me to assume that the supernatural explanation involving prophecy is better than the natural one involving a well-read guy with a good memory.

You don’t have to be the Colonel himself to finally see one cartoonish old rooster for what he is: a peckerhead who thinks he’s above the law; a buffoon who preens like the cock of the walk on his way to the chopping block; a foghorn-like loudmouth who spews hate and lies; and a stupid prick who accuses everyone else of all the crimes that he soon can’t resist fingering himself for.

But we’re gonna make it across this barnyard to the front porch of the farmhouse even if we do step in some chickenshit along the way. We just need to keep our heads up, oddly enough. So many beautiful things come into view by looking up, not down at our filthy muck boots: a golden sunrise on the eastern horizon; a perfect pillow of a cloud against the blue sky; a fiery sunset to the west; and, naturally, the stars and planets, the moon and musky satellites in the dusky night.

Loving nature and nurturing truth, not lies, are antidotes to the maladies that we’ve suffered for so long, not just anecdotes about people who spout hate like geysers of foul water. We need to cleanse ourselves of their filth, and let the light and warmth of the sun guide and strengthen us.

We need to keep our eyes on the bucket of KFC at the end of the drive-thru. And when we bring that baby back home, we can’t be too proud or too fearful to fight for a scrawny drumstick or the sinewy wings if they’re all that’s left after the bullies around the table grab the good chicken leg, both juicy thighs and both plump breasts. We just need to be patient. Those gluttons will founder on all the chicken feed that’s tossed to them for their support. They don’t know that they should go ahead and stick a fork in that old rooster stewing in the pot on the stove because he’s done.

The inimitable Mark Twain must have read this psalm before writing his antiwar short story “The War Prayer” late in life. The satirical tale was so “on the mark” that it wasn’t published until after Twain’s death. Basically, he says that when Christians pray for victory in war, these followers of a loving Christ are tacitly asking God to rain down death and devastation on a group of people.

This 35th Psalm is longer than most and — like so many others — mainly about war, a relevant topic that has bombarded us ever since Russia invaded Ukraine without provocation two years ago, and more so since the Arab terrorist junta Hamas attacked Israel two weeks ago. And this psalm has everyone — the soldier, sailor, beggar man, thief; the cowboy, rich man, Indian chief.

Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration — not to mention politically incorrect — but all is fair in love and war, right? And war is hell, right? Sherman said that, I think. And, generally speaking, didn’t Patton say, “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his”? That sure ain’t Christian. But neither was King David — nor ol’ Mark Twain, for that matter.