Psalm 69 for 2018

For this Holy Thursday, here is a 2018 variation on the theme of Psalm 69, a prayer of the weak against the wicked.

Save me, O God, from the torrent of lies and fake news posted on Facebook and other social media. Save me from the paid trolls, hackers, hecklers and peddlers of hate and discord. The untruths and half-truths they serve up daily are up to my chin. I am drowning in the foul diarrhea emanating from their mouths, pens and computers. Make me quick in deleting their press releases, messages and junk mail. I am weary from pleading that they shut up and give my spirit some rest. My throat is hoarse and dry.

God of the weak, allow me to spit on their eyes and throw urine on their heads even if only in my mind.

More than the hairs on their bodies are the dirt they have spread about those who oppose the evil that they do. How

they torment those who expose them. How they lie to win the people’s loyalty. They proudly strut about like princes and princesses but they know they have lied, stolen, killed, fornicated.

O God, do not allow me to become too cynical but do not allow me to become complacent either. Help me keep my conscience and my actions pure. Equip me with the power to smell the rot in the corridors of power and to speak out loud no matter who sits on the throne.

How they have changed and transmogrified into ogres in so short a time. How they have been transformed by the political frenzy. How they have been changed by their desire to be adulated, admired and idolized by the mindless throng so they could remain in power. They let their mouths drip with sweetness, but I can only smell the malodorous emission of a septic tank.

They rouse us from sleep with their antics, they wreck our daily routines to make announcements and dazzle us with misinformation. When it suits them, oh how they try to appear like the working man and the peasants. They wear faded clothes and lousy T-shirts hoping to look like the poor when in fact they only want to use the poor as footstools. They are liars, Lord, they are nothing but a bunch of liars and pretenders.

Rescue us from those who think serving means stealing some for themselves to make up for what they have spent to get to where they are. Rescue us from those who think everybody steals and cheats and therefore they should do likewise.

Rescue us from leaders who command, “Kill, kill, kill!” When we scream for relief from the blood and gore in the streets, they mock us and spit on our grief. Infuse us with your divine fire and cover us with your mercy so that we may be protected from the devils that lick with delight the blood on their hands. You know who they are, you know where they hide.

Let their loins be stricken with palsy, their tongues turned into twisted metal. Pour out your fury upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them. Make their camp desolate and let no one dwell in their tents.

We will praise your name, O God, with songs and poems and prose. We will glorify your goodness with my honest choices and decisions. This will please you, O Yahweh Sabaoth, more than the hundreds of charity projects that bear their names.

Let the heavens be glad, the earth bloom, the seas dance. All the living creatures praise you. For you will save us, you will rebuild our cities and villages. You will provide jobs and just wages to the unemployed. You will give the landless a piece of this planet and the wretched of the earth a share of the earth’s bounty.

You will help your people survive all this insanity. The just and honest will triumph and those who hearken to your word and obey your laws will inherit the land.

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