Our text is embedded in Psalm 116, a prayer, that is, language addressed to God: “I love the LORD, because he has heard my voice and my supplications” (verse 1). Prayer is speech at its most alive. The breath that is breathed into us by God we breathe back to God. When we pray, we are using language close to the source of language. In our baptismal identity we habituate ourselves to the language native to the country of salvation, the land of the living.
