{"id":2863,"date":"2024-02-14T23:45:17","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T23:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2863"},"modified":"2024-02-16T22:48:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T22:48:36","slug":"evensong-119","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2863","title":{"rendered":"EVENSONG 119"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is a good psalm, believe it or not, for Ash Wednesday. It\u2019s the longest psalm of all \u2014 176 verses filling 10 pages in my study bible. It\u2019s basically all of the psalms balled in one long song.

After wading through this plodding composition, I\u2019m ready to give up reading all psalms for Lent. No, just kidding. There are a few good lines \u2014 like a song with rotten verses but a great chorus.

When I was a child, my folks signed me up for the Bible Memory Association; but since I spoke as a child, I called it Bible Memorization. That was easier to say and made perfect sense to me.

Now, being a grown man, I\u2019ve put away childish malapropisms, but I still remember, \u201cYour word have I hidden in my heart, \/ That I might not sin against You\u201d \u2014 which is this psalm\u2019s 11th verse.

Then there\u2019s the evergreen comprising the 105th verse: \u201cYour word is a lamp to my feet \/ And a light to my path.\u201d Those were two verses I heard when I whined about memorizing Bible verses.

Knowing what I do now, I would have picked other lines to learn \u2014 verse 83, for instance: \u201cFor I have become like a wineskin in smoke\u2026.\u201d Imagine a fresh-faced six-year-old reciting that simile!

Another good line is in verse 90: \u201cYou established the earth, and it abides.\u201d That sounds just like the verse in Ecclesiastes that inspired the title of the best post-apocalyptic novel ever published.

Yes, the earth abides, and so does The Dude, even though this fellow has become not so much like a smoky wineskin, as, like, a soiled Persian rug that, you know, tied the room together, man.

Still, most of this longest of all psalms is the same old shazbot \u2014 David\u2019s self-righteousness and paranoia about enemies lying and scheming against him. He was the King, but he was no Dude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a good psalm, believe it or not, for Ash Wednesday. It\u2019s the longest psalm of all \u2014 176 verses filling 10 pages in my study bible. It\u2019s basically all of the psalms balled in one long song. After wading through this plodding composition, I\u2019m ready to give up reading all psalms for Lent. … Continue reading EVENSONG 119<\/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-2863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2863","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=2863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2864,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2863\/revisions\/2864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}