{"id":2576,"date":"2023-10-20T01:16:33","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T01:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2576"},"modified":"2023-10-20T01:16:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T01:16:50","slug":"evensong-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2576","title":{"rendered":"EVENSONG 35"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1025\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/PSX_20231011_134330-1025x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2575\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/PSX_20231011_134330-1025x1024.jpg 1025w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/PSX_20231011_134330-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/PSX_20231011_134330-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/PSX_20231011_134330-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/PSX_20231011_134330-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/PSX_20231011_134330.jpg 2044w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1025px) 100vw, 1025px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The inimitable Mark Twain must have read this psalm before writing his antiwar short story \u201cThe War Prayer\u201d late in life. The satirical tale was so \u201con the mark\u201d that it wasn\u2019t published until after Twain\u2019s 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.<br><br>This 35th Psalm is longer than most and \u2014 like so many others \u2014 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 \u2014 the soldier, sailor, beggar man, thief; the cowboy, rich man, Indian chief.<br><br>Well, that\u2019s a bit of an exaggeration \u2014 not to mention politically incorrect \u2014 but all is fair in love and war, right? And war is hell, right? Sherman said that, I think. And, generally speaking, didn\u2019t Patton say, \u201cThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his\u201d? That sure ain\u2019t Christian. But neither was King David \u2014 nor ol\u2019 Mark Twain, for that matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The inimitable Mark Twain must have read this psalm before writing his antiwar short story \u201cThe War Prayer\u201d late in life. The satirical tale was so \u201con the mark\u201d that it wasn\u2019t published until after Twain\u2019s death. Basically, he says that when Christians pray for victory in war, these followers of a loving Christ are &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2576\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">EVENSONG 35<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2577,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576\/revisions\/2577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}