Psalm 85

Port Salut Beach, Southern Haiti

Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
The Lord will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before him,
and will make a path for his steps.

The psalms assigned for today offer two distinct visions of That Which Exists.

A psalm to be read this evening (above) is reassuring.

The first psalm to be read this morning is frightening.

O my God, make them like whirling dust,
like chaff before the wind.
As fire consumes the forest,
as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,
so pursue them with your tempest
and terrify them with your hurricane.
Fill their faces with shame,
so that they may seek your name, O Lord.
Let them be put to shame and dismayed for ever;
let them perish in disgrace.

Evidence abounds for each. My life is typically much more similar to the first. But if I had been in Haiti during most of 2010, or had survived the Indian Ocean tsunami, or my home had been destroyed in the Texas wildfires the second psalm would seem much more real.

Psalm 85 and Psalm 83