Public Service Announcement

Public Service Announcement by debgrant

Let us read the psalm

responsively.

The sweet leaders of the readers rarely got it right,

and yet, they never got it wrong.

They would say,

Let us read the psalm…responsibly.

Like a public service announcement about alcohol consumption

on New Year’s Eve: Drink RESPONSIBLY.

Tough message for a crowd that is mostly drinking RESPONSIVELY

especially to this year of rage and grief.

The psalm fills our cup with both bitterness and beauty.

Valleys of death and green pastures.

How do we drink this responsively when our gag reflex wants to spit out the venomous before the song, that is if we live long enough to sing at all?

What would it mean to drink the psalm responsibly?

To take the cup and swallow deeply and

accept the truth of our vulnerability and fear, our mortality and capacity for evil?

In the same swallow, drink as deeply the truth of compassion poured into us, for us, for each other?

Would our poison spit be vaccinated so that we could speak the truth and

sing and maybe even live another day

responsibly?

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