Sunday Morning Meds--Praise the Lord!

[Note: Years ago, maybe twelve or so, I determined to write meditations on the Psalms, choosing specific psalms that carried some reference to broad lands and crops and the blessings of living out in the country. The aim--365 or so, an entire year. Two books spun out of that project, Sixty at Sixty, and Honest to God. But they've also been the regular Sunday morning fare of Stuff in the Basement. 

This is the last. I've gone through all the others in the years this blog has been up. I didn't know what I'd encounter this morning when I opened up the file, but what I found is a darn good way to end. As always, I hope you find it helpful.]

“Praise the Lord.” 

In the mid-Thirties, when the high plains became a sandbox, life was bitter for whoever hadn’t already pulled up stakes and left. Dust storms ruined the land and killed men, women, and children, filling their lungs with black sludge. The only real estate business going on took place in county courthouses where myriad foreclosures happened weekly. In 1935, the storms were as identifiable as neighbors—people recognized where they came from by their color. Some folks offered to trade their land for a truck.

Nonetheless, John L. McCarty, editor of the Dalhart Texan, would hear or see or speak no evil of the region he’d chosen. While news people from throughout the country reported on the horrors in the southern plains, he determined that the only way to put a healthy spin on things was to call the horrors blessings.

In a column titled “A tribute to our sand storms,” he trumpeted the joy of living in a nightmare. “The dust storms are majestic, even beautiful in their way,” he wrote. “Let us, in centurian tones, boast of our terrific and mighty dust storms, and of a people, a city, and a country that can meet the test of courage they afford and still smile.”

That wasn’t enough. “Instead of cowering in the sand,” he rallied, “people should look skyward in wonder.” And then this: “Let us praise nature and the wonderful God that rules nature,” he wrote. Praise ye the Lord.

I wish it weren’t so, but my jaded human soul hears all too many echoes of deceit in the final three words of Psalm 147, a history of insincerity. I wish I were more pure. Who can doubt the veracity and commitment of the psalmist? He’s no McCarty, a man with sincere motives, trying to save his people, but still lying through his teeth. Praise the Lord, the psalmist says, not trying to sell anything but God’s own glory.

“Praise the Lord” is one of those phrases that hang well on a Christmas tree or a shirt sleeve—much easier to say than do. It shines up well on dark nights and feels as good as any bromide. It’s long history of abuse is not the words, of course, but in us.

But who am I to point a finger? I’m no better. Give me a form that’s written up with a list of the seven deadly sins, and I could fill in “time, place, and transgression” I’m almost always proud, more than occasionally envious, even sometimes wrathful, despite my age—or maybe more so, given the fact that this month I’ll turn 70.

I’m lazy and greedy; I eat too much, and I’m probably more lecherous than Jimmy Carter ever was. Lord knows, I’m just as capable of spinning the truth as John L. McCarty, back there in Dalhart, Texas, 1935, even as I write these words just now. I can spin. I can twist words. And honestly, I’m not even sure I know the half of it.

But this much I do know. Because I know what kind of artful weaving I can do before others and before God almighty, because I know I’m full of spit and vinegar, and because I understand I’m not always to be trusted, I am therefore flat-out astounded by the sheer wonder of God’s favor, I am picked up and blown away by his love, and I will forever be grateful that he’ll never let me go. His grace is truly amazing.

“Praise the Lord,” the psalmist says—and so do I, with these very words, even though I know they will never enough be fine enough to plumb the depth of his love for me. Praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.