More Songs to Say Out Loud

Here are six more of the songs, and most of them are hard ones. They were written to be said out loud.

The songbook opens with a short one about two kinds of people, and it tells them apart with a tree and a heap of chaff. Chaff is the dry husk that comes off wheat when it is beaten. The farmer throws the beaten wheat up into the air, and the grain drops back down, and the chaff blows away and is not seen again. Blessed is the man who has not walked where the ungodly told him to walk, or stood in the road where sinners stand, or sat down in the seat of people who spoil things. What he wants is the law of the Lord, and he goes over it in his mind day and night. He will be like a tree planted beside running water, that gives its fruit when the season comes and whose leaf does not fall. Everything he does will come out well. Not so the ungodly. Not so. They are like chaff that the wind blows off the face of the earth. So the ungodly will not stand up when the judging comes, and sinners will not stand in the gathering of the righteous — because the Lord knows the way of the righteous, and the way of the ungodly is lost.

David made this next one when the prophet Nathan came to him. That was the worst day of David’s life. He had taken another man’s wife, and had the man killed to cover it up, and Nathan had walked into the palace, told him a story about a poor man and one little lamb, and then said four words: you are the man. This is what David said afterwards. There are no excuses anywhere in it. Show me mercy, God, out of your great mercy. Out of all your kindness, wipe away what I have done. Wash me right through from my lawbreaking, and make me clean from my sin. I know what I did. My sin is in front of me all the time. Against you, and you alone, I sinned; I did the evil thing where you could see it — so you are proved right when you speak, and you win when you are judged. Look — I was born into wrongdoing, and my mother carried me in it. And you loved the truth; you showed me the hidden and secret things of your wisdom. Sprinkle me and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear gladness and joy again, and the bones you crushed will be glad. Turn your face away from my sins and wipe out everything I have done. Make a clean heart in me, God, and put a straight new spirit inside me. Do not throw me away from where you are, and do not take your Holy Spirit away from me. Give me back the joy of your rescue, and hold me up with a spirit that leads me. Then I will teach lawbreakers your ways, and the ungodly will turn back to you. Rescue me from the blood I am guilty of, God, the God who rescues me, and my tongue will be glad about what is right. Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will say your praise. If you had wanted a sacrifice I would have brought one, but you do not want burnt offerings. The sacrifice God wants is a broken spirit. A heart that is broken and brought low, God will not count as nothing. Do good to Zion, Lord, because you want to. Build Jerusalem’s walls.

This one is about being kept safe. It names the things that frighten people in the dark, and one that comes at noon. The one who lives in the help of the Most High will sleep in the shelter of the God of heaven. He will say to the Lord: you are my helper and the place I run to, my God, and I will trust him — because he will pull me out of the hunter’s trap, and out of every word that hurts. He will put his shoulders over you, and you will trust under his wings. His truth will go round you like a shield. You will not be afraid of terror at night, or of an arrow flying by day, or of the thing that moves in the dark, or of the demon at noon. A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, and it will not come near you. Nothing evil will get to you, and no plague will come near where you live — because he will give his messengers orders about you, to guard you everywhere you go. They will lift you up on their hands, so you never so much as knock your foot on a stone. You will step on the snake and the basilisk, and walk over the lion and the dragon. And then, at the end, God answers in his own voice. “Because he held on to me, I will get him out. I will keep him safe, because he knew my name. He will call me, and I will listen. I am with him when he is in trouble. I will rescue him, and give him a long life, and show him how I save.”

David again, and this time he is telling himself to say thank you — the way you would take yourself by the shoulders and remind yourself out loud. My soul, bless the Lord, and let everything inside me bless his holy name. My soul, bless the Lord, and do not forget one single thing he gives — the one who forgives everything you have done wrong, and heals all your diseases, and buys your life back from the pit, and puts mercy and kindness on your head like a crown. He fills you up with good things, so that your young strength comes back like an eagle’s. The Lord does what is right and fair for everybody who is treated badly. He showed Moses his ways, and the children of Israel the things he wanted. The Lord is full of pity and mercy, slow to be angry and rich in kindness. He will not be angry to the end, and he will not keep his anger forever. He has not dealt with us the way our sins deserve, or paid us back for the wrong we have done. As high as heaven is above the earth, that is how strong his mercy is toward the people who stand in awe of him. As far as the east is from the west, that is how far he has put our wrongdoing away from us. As a father is gentle with his children, the Lord is gentle with the people who stand in awe of him — because he knows what we are made of. He remembers that we are dust. A person’s days are like grass. He flowers like a flower out in the field; the wind goes over it and it is gone, and the place where it stood does not know it any more. But the Lord’s mercy is from age to age on the people who stand in awe of him, and what is right goes on to their children’s children. The Lord has set his throne up in heaven, and his kingdom rules over everything. Bless the Lord, all his messengers, strong ones who do what he says the moment they hear it. Bless the Lord, all his works, everywhere he rules. My soul, bless the Lord.

This one is called up from the bottom of something. Out of the deep places I called to you, Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears listen hard to the sound of me begging. Lord, if you kept a record of everything done wrong — Lord, who could stand up? But there is forgiveness with you. Because of your law I waited for you, Lord. My soul waited for your word. My soul has hoped in the Lord from the first watch of the morning until night — from the first watch of the morning, let Israel hope in the Lord, because mercy is with the Lord, and there is plenty with him to buy us back. And he will buy Israel back out of everything it has done wrong.

The last one is a man thinking about being known all the way through, by somebody there is nowhere to get away from. Lord, you have tested me and you know me. You know when I sit down and when I get up. You understand what I am thinking from a long way off. You have traced out my path and the edges of it, and you saw every road I would take. There is not a word on my tongue you do not know. Look, Lord, you knew all of it, the last things and the oldest things. You made me and put your hand on me. Knowing that is too wonderful for me. It is too high; I cannot get up to it. Where can I go away from your spirit? Where can I run from your face? If I climb up to heaven, you are there. If I go down to Hades, you are there too. If I take up my wings at dawn and go and live at the far edge of the sea, even there your hand will lead me, and your right hand will hold on to me. I said: perhaps the dark will cover me over, and the night will be the light I like. But dark is not dark to you. Night shines like the day, and its darkness and its light are the same thing. You made my insides. You held me up from my mother’s body. I will thank you, because I was made wonderfully, and it is frightening how wonderfully. Your works are wonderful, and my soul knows it very well. My bones were not hidden from you when you made me in secret, down in the deep parts of the earth. Your eyes saw me before I was finished, and my days were written in your book before there was one of them. Your friends have become very precious to me, God, and their rule very strong. If I counted them they would be more than the sand. I woke up, and I am still with you. And then it turns and gets hard. He has been thinking about the people who hate God, and he says exactly what he thinks of them. If only you would kill the wicked, God. Get away from me, you men of blood. Do I not hate the ones who hate you, Lord? I hate them with a whole hatred. They have become my enemies. And then, in the very next breath, he asks to be looked through and told what is in there. Test me, God, and know my heart. Look me over and know my paths. See whether there is any wrong way in me, and lead me in the way that lasts forever.

That is what these songs are like. A man can say a thing like that about his enemies, and turn round and ask God to search him and say what he finds. Whatever anybody has to say to God, somebody has already said it.