{"id":2851,"date":"2024-02-10T01:09:42","date_gmt":"2024-02-10T01:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2851"},"modified":"2024-02-10T14:07:15","modified_gmt":"2024-02-10T14:07:15","slug":"evensong-116","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2851","title":{"rendered":"EVENSONG 116"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1025\" height=\"795\" src=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240209_200854-1025x795.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2850\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240209_200854-1025x795.jpg 1025w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240209_200854-300x233.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240209_200854-768x596.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240209_200854-1536x1191.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240209_200854-2048x1589.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1025px) 100vw, 1025px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This psalm is easy to understand. The psalmist speaks as a man who was close to death, who prayed to his god for healing, and who then survived whatever physical malady he had suffered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The superstitious speaker believes that if he hadn\u2019t cried out for mercy, he would have died; and he pledges to forevermore praise the supreme power \u2014 YHWH \u2014 that he thinks spared his life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My question now is the flip side of that old coin toss of the gods \u2014 you know, our expectation of either reward or punishment for our behavior on earth. Has good and bad ever really mattered?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m sure that question sounds silly to fundamentalists who are counting on an afterlife in heaven. But my real question is, why then do good things happen to \u201cbad\u201d people who never, ever pray?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This psalm is easy to understand. The psalmist speaks as a man who was close to death, who prayed to his god for healing, and who then survived whatever physical malady he had suffered. The superstitious speaker believes that if he hadn\u2019t cried out for mercy, he would have died; and he pledges to forevermore &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2851\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">EVENSONG 116<\/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-2851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2851","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=2851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2852,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2851\/revisions\/2852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}