Nothing new under the sun

While the phrase "nothing new under the sun" comes from the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, I am currently reading the Psalms. The contents of both of those books can be viewed as poetry, prayer, journals or song lyrics. King David is credited with penning many of the Psalms around 1000 BCE, and his son, Solomon, with Ecclesiastes. After glancing through the headlines one day last week, I settled down for some quiet time and the words of Psalm 140 jumped off the page at me. I saw that another writer had scribed a musing I wanted to share with you. The text below is from a newer translation of the Bible called The Message, by Eugene H. Peterson.

God, get me out of here, away from this evil,

protect me from these vicious people.

All they do is think up new ways to be bad,

they spend their days plotting war games.

They practice the sharp rhetoric of hate and hurt,

speak venomous words that maim and kill.

God, keep me out of the clutch of these wicked ones,

protect me from these vicious people,

Stuffed with self-importance, they plot ways to trip me up,

determined to bring me down.

These crooks invent traps to catch me

and do their best to incriminate me.

I prayed, "God, you're my God!

Listen, God! Mercy!

God, my Lord, Strong Savior,

protect me when the fighting breaks out!

Don't let the wicked have their way, God,

don't give them an inch!"

These troublemakers all around me - 

let them drown in their own verbal poison.

Let God pile hellfire on them,

let him bury them alive in crevasses!

These loudmouths - 

don't let them be taken seriously,

These savages - 

let the Devil hunt them down!

I know that you, God, are on the side of victims,

that you care for the rights of the poor,

And I know that the righteous personally thank you,

that good people are secure in your presence.

It doesn't matter whether you are agnostic or a strong believer in a Higher Power, a searcher or preacher, whether you see these words as divinely inspired or simply a cry from the heart. What does matter, at least to me, is that through the ages, other civilizations, other cultures, other peoples have experienced what our newspapaers and sound bytes scream at us today. They survived. So will we.

Marilyn