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One of the reasons why the monastic tradition has held so firmly to a disciplined reading of the psalms is not just because we acquire a true knowledge and love of God, but also and perhaps more importantly because we acquire God-attuned instincts born out of a habit of prayer.
Left to our own devices, we will as likely pray to a god made in our own image, driven by our own idiosyncratic desires, warped by our sin-intoxicated passions—a rational god, a pacifying god, an activist god, an abstract god, a wonder-working god, a cruel god, a "nice" god.
When we pray the psalms day after day, year after year, we find ourselves in what Eugene Peterson called the large country of salvation. Here we discover no generic god but rather the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This God has a story. This God has a particular history. This God defies a proclivities to "master" him. Here we find a Just Judge (Ps. 9) who exacts vengeance against all oppressors as well as a Merciful One (Ps. 86) who inclines his ear to the cries of the afflicted.
This God avenges the vulnerable (Ps. 26), heals the brokenhearted (Ps. 147), protects the widows (Ps. 146), forgives the penitent (Ps. 32), redeems the sinner (Ps. 51). This God reigns over heaven & earth, over past & future. This God governs mortals and nations and galaxies.
And when we pray to this God, we find ourselves trained in the virtues of sympathy and empathy. On certain days a psalm will invite us to pray what we feel in the moment—need, joy, hope, fear, doubt. On other days a psalm will invite us to pray despite our feelings of the moment.
Why do sympathy and empathy matter to our prayer life--particularly during these trying & troubling times? Because they are a way that we, like Jesus, can give care and receive care. To pray the psalms, on some days, is to feel for others what we may not feel at the moment.
It is a way for us to see and know & care for our neighbors. To enter into my neighbor’s pain, for example, as I read Psalm 88 (a prayer for the despondent) when I feel joy and might rather be reading Psalm 96 (a prayer of praise), is a way to exhibit the sympathetic love of God.
On other days, to pray the psalms is to feel with others what we feel ourselves. To pray Psalm 51, for instance, on an occasion I feel acutely the need for forgiveness, is to enter into my neighbor’s need for the forgiveness of God, whether or not his sins are familiar to me.
In praying this way, we exhibit the empathetic love of God. To pray in these two ways, in the end, is to be trained in self-care and neighborly care, in the kind of care that Jesus offers to sinners and saints alike, in a God-shaped, God-attuned love with and for our neighbors.
Why do I mention these things? Because if a tree is known by its fruit, then the fruit of Christian behavior on social media toward our neighbors' suffering over the past few months betrays a defective and deficient prayer life, which is a grievous and serious matter.
The psalms, of course, would willingly rescue us from our terrible predicament. In reading them we'd enter into a school of prayer, in which we'd remain students our whole lifelong, learning how to talk to God and with God, for God's sake & our neighbors'. https://www.amazon.com/Open-Unafraid-Psalms-Guide-Life/dp/140021047X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2W3J5IWSRBZSV&dchild=1&keywords=open+and+unafraid&qid=1592669946&sprefix=open+and+unafraid%2Caps%2C274&sr=8-1
