First, I pretty much despise Sunday morning televangelists speaking in huge halls to huge audiences.
I don’t find a religious message there. I infer something more along the lines of an owner of a very large auto dealership performing a commercial.
The spiritual rhythm and soul and intimacy are missing. Which I presume were there among the early Christians in the Middle East. In their devoted communities.
On the other hand, when I read Psalm 23 in the King James, I’m brought into some of the most marvelous and stirring poetry in the English language:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
To me, that Psalm is a majestic orchestra. The devotion it carries is boundless.
I believe many true Christians would agree.
So…
Suppose just a dozen small groups of Christians took it upon themselves to appear in a public place, every day if possible, or at least several times a week, across the country, and recited the Psalm out loud, a few dozen times…
No matter what.
No matter what other people said or did.
This would be a living article of faith.
This could begin to restore the meaning of actual religion.
Not by claiming dedication. Not by instruction. Not by abstract indication. But by and through language/poetry at its height. Words made flesh. Flesh made words.
Which MOVE people.
Who knows what could come out of a dozen devoted groups of Christians reciting this Psalm in public?
If, when you read the Psalm above, the impact was lost on you, read it yourself out loud. Keep reading it out loud until it gets through.
When I was a child, someone read it in school. I never forgot it. Because it is a true spiritual POEM. Not a chunk of wooden prose or a dictum or a law or a generalized declaration.
Whether you know it or not, whether you like it or not, what is missing from religion now IS poetry. The highest form of language.
From my scant browsing of the Bible, I find no poetic words which exceed Psalm 23.
Why allow them to just sit there? Why allow them to merely rest on the page like a piece of history? Why even study them, unless you read them out loud? They ARE expressions of a VOICE.
If this Psalm has a place in these times, it is in public on the street. Brought to life by humans speaking it.
And brought to life by listeners. You see, the general public isn’t dead. It behaves that way in the absence of genuine inspiration. And when suddenly that inspiration appears, a stagnant inner river begins to flow again.
Would these small Christian groups I’m proposing face some opposition? No doubt they would. Just as the early Christians did. But deep faith prevails, as long as it returns to its roots.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…
That is a deep, deep root.
As an aside, the whole of the English language is dying because people don’t listen to the best of it out loud and don’t read it out loud.
When a bit of the best of it is also the basis of an entire religion, there is absolutely no reason to expect devotees of the religion to be ALIVE in that devotion…unless they become intimate with the expression…the language…the poetry…The Word…
-- Jon Rappoport
Episode 57 of Rappoport Podcasts—“Aaron Rodgers and the death of television! Rodgers, Jimmy Kimmel, Jeffrey Epstein, COVID, Fauci, ESPN, Disney, Taylor Swift, ‘Mr. Pfizer’—it’s one big ball of wax; Let’s melt it down and see what it looks like”—is now posted on my substack. It’s a blockbuster. To listen, go here. To learn more about this episode of Rappoport Podcasts, go here.
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