One thing that always struck me as I read through the Pslams was the musical instructions at the tops of some of them. For some reason, it took me forever to realize that these were actual songs. As in, things people sang. Performed. Hummed throughout their day.
I’m a musical person, and I sing constantly. In an office I worked in for a while, one of the agents joked that he talked to himself, but not me–I sang to myself instead. It’s true. And whenever I write a characters, I try to think of what songs they would be humming or singing as they go about their day.
I love that for these characters, I have a whole book of their cultural songs right there in my Bible. I can read through them just as they did, and though I don’t know their melodies, I can still pick which one they may have chosen to sing on a given day. I’m sure there were other songs of the day, probably some that weren’t aimed at God, but I love the idea of these characters lifting their voices to the Lord on a daily basis . . . even on those days when their hearts aren’t in it. When we speak words, praises, they have a way of getting inside us. We may not mean them at the time, but they get embedded. And then they have a way of coming back to us when we need them most.
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