{"id":2869,"date":"2024-02-16T22:51:29","date_gmt":"2024-02-16T22:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2869"},"modified":"2024-02-16T22:51:32","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T22:51:32","slug":"evensong-121","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2869","title":{"rendered":"EVENSONG 121"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is probably the second most familiar psalm in its entirety, next to the 23rd Psalm. It\u2019s short, another \u201cSong of Ascent\u201d \u2014 inspirational lines to sing while going up or, in this case, looking up.

It was read at the funeral of Senator Sam J. Ervin, a grandfatherly figure and country gentleman who found big-city fame in the halls of D.C., but returned to his tiny hometown in the hills of N.C.

\u201cI will lift up my eyes to the hills \u2014 \/ From whence comes my help?\u201d Reading the verse now after hearing it often, I noted its punctuation \u2014 an em dash in the middle, a question mark at the end.

People don\u2019t recite the verse that way, as if the speaker has made a statement and then pauses for an instant \u2014 in wonder or deep thought or confusion, maybe \u2014 before asking their question.

The answer, of course, comes in the second verse: \u201cMy help comes from the Lord, \/ Who made heaven and earth.\u201d I do agree, except that I don\u2019t spell \u201cLord\u201d as the Old Hebrew psalmist does.

And I\u2019m not so sure that \u201cthe hills\u201d alone are God\u2019s Country, as it were. The iSoul is everywhere, in everything; from Hawksbill at sunrise to Bird Island at sunset; and in every breath we do take.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is probably the second most familiar psalm in its entirety, next to the 23rd Psalm. It\u2019s short, another \u201cSong of Ascent\u201d \u2014 inspirational lines to sing while going up or, in this case, looking up. It was read at the funeral of Senator Sam J. Ervin, a grandfatherly figure and country gentleman who found … Continue reading EVENSONG 121<\/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-2869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2869","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=2869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2870,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2869\/revisions\/2870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}