So, there was nothing else I could do, but proceed to my bedroom: I determined as I knelt, through heavy sobs and tears, to refocus my grief and have my soul and mind converted to gratitude – maybe if I’d been more clued into the Psalter I might have done that sooner. What a debt I owe to my God who gave my parents. What love they rained on me as parental ministers of God’s love.

A lot has been made about the general drift of the mood music of the Psalter: a strong case has been made that, as we travel from Psalms 1-150, lament gives way to lauding. Book 1 (1-42), in general, eavesdrops on David’s tears. Book 5 (107-150) concludes the hymnal in a rapture of sacred applause: as creation stands to its feet and raises up Jehovah’s praise, the ‘Big Picture’ emerges: at a macroscopic level, all Psalter pain start-outs are meant to end in praise.

At a microscopic level too, the same principle appears. Within many (if not most) of its individual prayers and hymns, the same tune is played as songs flow from ache to anthem. A hidden thread-like principle is woven into the very fabric of the Psalter – as its pulse crests and troughs, the very death-resurrection breath of Christ is exhaled, as the Son of Jesse sings in the Spirit of his Lord.

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