Engaging with these timeless, sacred songs is not just an affirmation of our faith but also a practice that gives our lives a sense of ritual. When we recite the psalms, we are enacting what our forebears did millennia ago: looking for a pathway through a given situation, emotional or physical, and using the words to try to reach a clear and comprehensible place. There is nothing new under the sun, the philosopher says; there is nothing new in this unfathomable ocean of the human condition that the 150 songs in the Book of Psalms don't address.