Collage Story Box: Psalm 148 in a Modern Reading by John Kohan

November 10, 2024

Collage Story Box: Psalm 148 in a Modern Reading by John Kohan

My fifth biblical diorama offers a modern reading of Psalm 148 aimed at climate change deniers. Each verse in this paean to God is matched with images of the ways humanity has despoiled and destroyed these wonders of Creation that praise their Maker in the ancient text. While God looks down in grief from Paradise and headlines scream of looming environmental disasters, space probes pierce the heavenly heights, the waters “above” spin in threatening storm clouds, the “dragons” of the polluted deep lie slaughtered in fish kills, and lightning fires, blizzards, tornadoes and hurricanes ravage the overheated planet. The foothills of Mount Everest are blanketed in trash, mighty cedars fall to loggers, wild animals suffer in cages and cattle in factory pens, while wild birds smother in oil slicks. The peoples of the earth are lorded over by despots, would-be autocrats and religious bigots, divided among the very rich and the very poor, one and all at the mercy of global pandemics. Little wonder the Psalmist David, surveying the scene, sinks ever deeper into a trash dump! (John Kohan)