Psalt of the earth.

A few years back I was looking through the old Psalter at Lent in the hopes that exposing myself to more of the Bible I should become upright, upstanding, even outstanding in my goodness. Nothing ever seems to do it for me, though. I'm going to have to keep praying that Jesus drags me over the finish line.

Still, it can't hurt. As a side benefit, the Bible is the cornerstone of Western civilization, and anyone who wants to understand Western Civ should have more than a passing acquaintance with the book.

Since part of a psalm is read every Sunday, it seemed like a helpful part of the Old Testament upon which to focus. Read a few psalms a day and you're through all 150 before you know it!

Well, it proved to be a tougher assignment than I expected. I have the attention span of a 12-year-old, so sticking through some of the longer psalms is work. Theology is hard!

The psalms are heartbreaking in some cases, fearful, trembling, or joyful in others. They reflect the honest and strongest emotions of a people who know God knows exactly what they’re thinking. Many of the early Davidic ones reflect the various perils he encountered, so there’s a lot of similarities among them---my enemies are after me, they really suck, why won’t you help, I trust you Lord.

I can’t help feeling grateful that I was born when I was and not some time in the distant past, before air conditioning, cheeseburgers, and modern dentistry. If your man Fred had been a writer in the time of King David, the psalms might have been a much different and probably lousy affair. Here is my attempt at a psalm (Psalm 13½):

For the leader. A psalm of David. (By Fred! Woo!)

How long, LORD?
Have you totally blanked me out?
I’m in big heaping piles of trouble here.
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I go on whining and whining
Like a sniveling kid whose balloon broke
And he lost the top off his ice cream cone
And he didn’t get to go to the circus
Dude?
Sorry: MR. DUDE Sir?
How long will my enemy keep beating on me?
He kicks my hienie
He slaps my face
He calls me Herbert
He knees me in the groin
Which was great on Jerusalem’s Funniest Home Videos
But didn’t win the 10,000 shekels.
Help, LORD!
I’m in trouble here!
I am not kidding, even!
Don’t let my enemy get away with this!
He’s a real jerk!
But I trust in your mercy.
Everyone around me doesn’t care,
But you still care.
No matter how much I whine
And lie
And cheat
And sin
And---um, could you forget about the last few verses?
Grant my heart joy in your salvation,
And I will sing of your mercy,
Because no one needs it more than I do,
Except my enemy
Who is a jerk.
Thanks, God!
(Sorry about the “Dude” stuff.)

And then David would probably have separated me from my neck.

"Zing! Like butter."