{"id":213,"date":"2011-03-25T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-25T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/?p=213"},"modified":"2011-03-25T09:50:28","modified_gmt":"2011-03-25T13:50:28","slug":"my-unlikely-love-affair-with-the-23rd-psalm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/03\/my-unlikely-love-affair-with-the-23rd-psalm.html","title":{"rendered":"My Unlikely Love Affair with the 23rd Psalm"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid growing up in an atheist\/agnostic family (my dad was the atheist and my mother the agnostic), I did not learn about the Bible at home. Or anywhere else, really. My mom took us to Quaker meeting occasionally, which is where I learned to say the Shema. But otherwise I had no education whatsoever in Scripture.<\/p>\n

This is why it was very surprising to me when one day, in McDonalds of all places, my mother started quoting the 23rd<\/sup> Psalm. I don\u2019t even remember why it came up, but I was deeply impressed that she knew all of it from memory. She recited it in this odd formal language that I now know to be the King James version. I must have been in sixth grade at the time. (I know this because I was on crutches at the time. It was in sixth grade that an overzealous post-disco skater had skated over me at the rink. I will spare you that story.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, so I was about eleven years old, and my mom started teaching me this Psalm. I learned most of it right there over chicken nuggets and fries. It became for me like a talisman, something to recite when I was scared, like the time I watched The Exorcist<\/em> and I wasn\u2019t supposed to, or the time I watched The Omen<\/em> and I wasn\u2019t supposed to, or . . . you get the idea.<\/p>\n

I loved this psalm, and still do. For many, many years it was the only psalm I knew, offering a rudder of beauty and a sparkling hint of God. Today, I have a number of Psalms in my spiritual arsenal, yet this tried and true gem has seen me through times of darkness and times of deep joy.<\/p>\n

Which is why even in the midst of my sometimes snarky, sometimes angry, sometimes bewildered Twible project<\/a>, some things are just sacred. The Lord is my shepherd, even in the valley of the shadow of death. The Lord is my shepherd, and he leads me to green pastures and still waters. The Lord is my shepherd, and my cup runneth over. Amen.<\/p>\n

Recent Twible<\/a> entries:<\/p>\n

#Twible Ps 17: Hide me in the shadow of your wings, G. They\u2019re even cozier than goose down, AND they don\u2019t hurt the environment. A win-win.<\/p>\n

#Twible Ps 18: Long & trippy psalm about G\u2019s badass warrior days. Smoke even came from his nostrils. Do they make holy Kleenex for that?<\/p>\n

#Twible Ps 19: \u201cHeaven\u2019s telling the glory of God\u2026\u201d So THAT\u2019s what heaven\u2019s saying. I have AT&T, see. It kept dropping heaven\u2019s calls.<\/p>\n

#Twible Ps 20: May G grant your ?\u2019s desire & fulfill all your plans. Except that scheme about meeting Angelina Jolie. Give it up, man.<\/p>\n

#Twible Ps 21: Righteous monarchs get blessings & a long reign. Well, except Lady Jane Grey. Her 9-day reign didn\u2019t end well. But OTHERWISE\u2026<\/p>\n

#Twible Ps 22: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Was it the onions I ate? Or maybe the beans? I KNEW I should\u2019ve avoided the beans.<\/p>\n

#Twible Ps 23: G\u2019s my shepherd. He lets me nap in green pastures. He protects me from the wolves. Sometimes it rocks to be a sheep, y\u2019know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid growing up in an atheist\/agnostic family (my dad was the atheist and my mother the agnostic), I did not learn about the Bible at home. Or anywhere else, really. My mom took us to Quaker meeting occasionally, which is where I learned to say the Shema. But otherwise I had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":226,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[1143,22,21,71,70,73,74,76,75,1145,72],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-twible","tag-bible","tag-flunking-sainthood","tag-jana-riess","tag-psalm-23","tag-psalms","tag-scripture-memorization","tag-the-exorcist","tag-the-lord-is-my-shepherd","tag-the-omen","tag-twible","tag-twitter-bible"],"yoast_head":"\nMy Unlikely Love Affair with the 23rd Psalm - Flunking Sainthood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/03\/my-unlikely-love-affair-with-the-23rd-psalm.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Unlikely Love Affair with the 23rd Psalm - Flunking Sainthood\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When I was a kid growing up in an atheist\/agnostic family (my dad was the atheist and my mother the agnostic), I did not learn about the Bible at home. 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