PSALM 112
Praise the Lord, O ye servants,
praise ye the Name of the Lord.
Blessed be the Name of the Lord
from henceforth and for evermore.
From the rising of the sun
unto the going down of the same,
the Name of the Lord is to be praised.
High above all the nations is the Lord,
above the heavens is His glory.
Who is like unto the Lord our God?
Who dwelleth on high
and looketh down on things that are lowly,
in heaven and on the earth.
Who raiseth up the poor man from the earth,
and from the dunghill lifteth up the pauper,
Who maketh the barren woman to dwell in a house
and be a mother rejoicing over children.
Gladsome Lights 
“…from the dunghill lifteth up the pauper,…” That line evokes my memory of the trash heap in Manila. In 1986, I was in seminary in Japan when a group of social justice warriors in my Anglican diocese organized an exposure tour to the Philippines, where we saw such filth and degradation in the slums of Manila and in the banana groves of Mindanao. I’ll never forget how solid and yet how liquid the mound of garbage was that we climbed in the Philippine capital. It was appalling how desperate people were to recycle the last piece of marketable refuse from that hill of stench. These were mostly Catholic Christians, scraping away at what had been discarded in order to make a living of such desperate recycling. “Oh, Lord, there must be a better way. There must be a better way,” was my thought.
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Thank you for fleshing out the image of the dunghill. Glory to God for lifting us up!
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Wonderful! Yesterday’s too. Thank you, Gretchen.
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I love the Psalms.
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