How Does the Psalter Work?
How does this work? There have been many images used to describe what happens during the singing of the psalms. The pace and rhythm of it can be likened to waves that constantly wash over us with the Biblical prayer, bathing us in the images and emotions of the psalms, wearing a path in the stone of our hearts by its constant, gentle force. The hymn for the Common of Holy Men and Women gives particular expression to this idea: May all that splendid company/whom Christ our Savior came to meet,/help us on our uneven road/made smoother by their passing feet. The regularity of this prayer and fidelity to it afford those who are praying a different kind of appreciation. Christians come to live with the praise of God, abide with it. In the frenzied pace of the contemporary world, people rush from thing to thing or activity to event, like tourists rushing from monument to monument for the souvenir snapshot without really seeing or experiencing the genius of a place. Those who engage in the Li
