One day, Jonathan, my dear Jewish friend, and I were talking about Psalm 27.  We agreed that it was a powerful psalm, particularly its thirteenth verse.  This verse presents a simple truth.  Whatever else happens, it asserts, "We will see the goodness of God in the land of the living."

     Jonathan went on to say that what really gives this verse its force is not so much the final verse of psalm 27 ("hope in the Lord") but the entirely of the final psalm in the canon, Psalm 150.  "Praise the Lord," this psalm says over and over, "Praise the Lord."
     We of course cannot praise if we do not believe.  Yet we cannot believe unless we acknowledge, and praise, the fact of a loving God.
     And in this is our ultimate human challenge.