{"id":2604,"date":"2023-11-02T01:48:51","date_gmt":"2023-11-02T01:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2604"},"modified":"2023-11-02T01:48:55","modified_gmt":"2023-11-02T01:48:55","slug":"evensong-44","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2604","title":{"rendered":"EVENSONG 44"},"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\/11\/PSX_20231011_134403-1025x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2603\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/PSX_20231011_134403-1025x1024.jpg 1025w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/PSX_20231011_134403-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/PSX_20231011_134403-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/PSX_20231011_134403-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/PSX_20231011_134403-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/PSX_20231011_134403-2048x2048.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1025px) 100vw, 1025px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This is yet another longish psalm of war; however, it\u2019s remarkable for one big difference from the others so far \u2014 this psalmist admits that his nation ain\u2019t what it used to be on the battlefield and that his people have become \u201ca reproach to our neighbors, \/ A scorn and a derision to those all around us\u201d and \u201ca byword among the nations, \/ A shaking of the head among the peoples.\u201d Huh.<br><br>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 \u2014 that\u2019s right, lost \u2014 11 wars and has been involved in 11 others whose outcomes were inconclusive. And some losses and draws occurred long before the Korean War.<br><br>So this psalmist must face the truth \u2014 something our boastful bigmouth will never do \u2014 and he questions why all this rotten luck has befallen him and his people. I\u2019m the same warrior poet I\u2019ve always been, he says. We all follow every inscrutable rule we\u2019re supposed to, he says. And still we\u2019re \u201ckilled all day long; \/ We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.\u201d Uh, everyone but him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is yet another longish psalm of war; however, it\u2019s remarkable for one big difference from the others so far \u2014 this psalmist admits that his nation ain\u2019t what it used to be on the battlefield and that his people have become \u201ca reproach to our neighbors, \/ A scorn and a derision to those &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2604\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">EVENSONG 44<\/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-2604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2604","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=2604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2605,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2604\/revisions\/2605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}