{"id":2872,"date":"2024-02-19T23:57:15","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T23:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2872"},"modified":"2024-02-19T23:57:20","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T23:57:20","slug":"evensong-122","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2872","title":{"rendered":"EVENSONG 122"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"677\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240219_185548-677x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2871\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240219_185548-677x1024.jpg 677w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240219_185548-198x300.jpg 198w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240219_185548-768x1162.jpg 768w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240219_185548-1015x1536.jpg 1015w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240219_185548-1353x2048.jpg 1353w, https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/PSX_20240219_185548.jpg 1362w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 677px) 100vw, 677px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The first verse of this \u201cSong of Ascent\u201d is familiar from a hymn that my mother often sang: \u201cI was glad when they said to me, \/ \u2018Let us go into the house of the Lord.\u2019\u201d Mom\u2019s life was one of words and music. Toward the end of it, she had no words left to share, but she could still hum the tune.<br><br>The actual psalm is about Jerusalem, the city of peace, a place where the 12 disparate tribes of Israel could hike up \u2014 or ascend \u2014 Mount Zion to worship together. Spurgeon takes this psalm a step further, saying, \u201c[T]hose who break the peace of the [Christian] church deserve to suffer.\u201d<br><br>The old preacher mentions \u201c[s]trife, suspicion, party spirit, [and] division,\u201d in particular, within the church as being \u201cdeadly things.\u201d But those \u201cingredients\u201d \u2014 another term he uses \u2014 sound much like the hatefulness baked into every evangelical Christian church that I ever attended in my life.<br><br>The song ends: \u201cFor the sake of my brethren and companions, \/ I will now say, \u2018Peace be within you.\u2019 \/ Because of the house of the Lord our God \/ I will seek your good.\u201d Don\u2019t misread that last word as I did. It\u2019s \u201cgood.\u201d And if we can\u2019t sing all of those words, maybe we can hum a few bars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first verse of this \u201cSong of Ascent\u201d is familiar from a hymn that my mother often sang: \u201cI was glad when they said to me, \/ \u2018Let us go into the house of the Lord.\u2019\u201d Mom\u2019s life was one of words and music. Toward the end of it, she had no words left to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/?p=2872\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">EVENSONG 122<\/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-2872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872","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=2872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2873,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872\/revisions\/2873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gaillardiapress.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}