Psalms is the magnetic center, pulling every scrap and dimension of human experience into a prayerful response to God. The psalms are quite indiscriminate in their subject matter: complaints and thanks, doubt and anger, outcries of pain and outbursts of joy, quiet reflection and boisterous worship. If it’s human, it qualifies. Any human experience or thought can be prayed. Eventually it all must be prayed if it is to retain—or recover—its essential humanity. The totality of God’s concern with the totality of our humanity is then elaborated by means of the two polarities.
