Psalm 36
Psalm 37
Psalm 38
Psalm 39
Psalm 40
Psalm 41
Psalm 42
Psalm 43
Psalm 44
Psalm 45
Psalm 46
Psalm 47
Psalm 48
Psalm 49
Psalm 50
Psalm 51
Psalm 52
Psalm 53
Psalm 54
Psalm 55
Psalm 56
Psalm 57
Psalm 58
Psalm 59
Psalm 60
Psalm 61
Psalm 62
Psalm 63
Psalm 64
Psalm 65
Psalm 66
Psalm 67
Psalm 68
Psalm 69
Psalm 70
Psalm 71
Psalm 72
Psalm 73
Psalm 74
Psalm 75
Psalm 76
Psalm 77
Psalm 78
Psalm 79
Psalm 80
Psalm 81
Psalm 82
Psalm 83
Psalm 84
Psalm 85
Psalm 86
Psalm 87
Psalm 88
Psalm 89
Psalm 90
Psalm 91
Psalm 92
Psalm 93
Psalm 94
Psalm 95
Psalm 96
Psalm 97
Psalm 98
Psalm 99
Psalm 100
Psalm 101
Psalm 102
Psalm 103
Psalm 104
Psalm 105
Psalm 106
Psalm 107
Psalm 108
Psalm 109
Psalm 110
Psalm 111
Psalm 112
Psalm 113
Psalm 114
Psalm 115
Psalm 116
Psalm 117
Psalm 118
Psalm 119
Psalm 120
Psalm 121
Psalm 122
Psalm 123
Psalm 124
Psalm 125
Psalm 126
Psalm 127
Psalm 128
Psalm 129
Psalm 130
Psalm 131
Psalm 132
Psalm 133
Psalm 134
Psalm 135
Psalm 136
Psalm 137
Psalm 138
Psalm 139
Psalm 140
Psalm 141
Psalm 142
Psalm 143
Psalm 144
Psalm 145
Psalm 146
Psalm 147
Psalm 148
Psalm 149
Psalm 150
I came to the psalms as a choirboy and a schoolboy. In my memory, a particular room is associated with each experience.
The first is the large high-ceilinged choir room of St. Luke’s Church in Cork, Ireland, where Mr. Garrett, short in stature but rich in those gifts needed to be the master of a boys’ choir, drilled us weekly in the singing of the psalms. For him the psalm was never merely a bridge to be crossed casually from the Venite to the First Lesson. The psalm would initially be explained, at least its main theme. Then, whatever the mood of the psalm might be—tenderness, rage, praise, awe, adoration—that particular feeling was demanded of our singing, sometimes pursued at the cost of seemingly endless repetition.
The second room is the big parish schoolroom. At least, I remember it as large and even cavernous. During the week, the psalms were part of a rich diet of learning by heart—a tradition that was still very much alive in the Ireland of the nineteen thirties and forties. Along with speeches from Shakespeare, passages from Paul’s epistles, prayer book collects, not to mention great prayers (for example, “for all sorts and conditions”) and hymns—all were recited from memory, and all became the ingredients of a process of Christian formation absorbed at a level deeper then mere intellectual understanding.
It was quite extraordinary how deeply the landscapes of scripture blended with the surrounding world of everyday perception. The large eyes of the cattle on my grandfather’s farm became “great bulls of Bashan come about me.” To stand on the beach looking out at the ocean was to hear “there goes that Leviathan,” and