by Charles W. McCanless (Author)

One hundred and fifty Psalms, and many of them full of the horror of their times: defeat, shame, humiliation, enemies, destruction, exile; not to mention lying, cheating, robbing the poor, leaving widows with nothing, priests running Ponzi schemes, and prophets saddling up to power. We've got all this and more going on today, and we wring our hands, complain a little, keep mostly silent for fear of offending anyone and excuse ourselves saying, "but what can one person do?" We need the Psalms. We need to pray with them, all of them, the truth of them.

So, as the gospel hymn says, "take it to the Lord in prayer." All of it. And let the Psalms be your courage and guide.

This book is but one example of what that might look and sound like in this age of Trump. Evil runs amok and it is nothing new. It goes back thousands of years and may go forward thousands more.... but this is our time.

This is our time to shed tears, our time to pray the injustices, deceptions, violence, vengefulness, sacrilege, arrogance and general meanness that is hurting and killing those who have little defense against it. Now is our time to pray, to pray with the psalmists who longed for the merciful love of the Holy One, longed for compassion on the poor, orphan, widow - the 'least of these' - as Jesus put it; and to pray it all without ceasing.

May the psalms and these prayerful and hopefully relevant meditations on them be an inspiration to you to join your heart and voice in "the prayers of the people" now.