When I was a grade school student (back in the dark ages for the younger generation), the teacher sometimes assigned us the task of learning and reciting a Bible verse as class work.

Being more of the “Jesus wept” type of verse memorizer, I was shocked when a classmate, Grady, recited Psalm 23 in its entirety.

You probably know it – the one that begins “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

To many people today, the idea that we had to (or could) recite bible verses in a public school is shocking, given that the fad now is to describe the United States as an atheist country.

Not only that, but our teacher wrote a bible verse on the blackboard (do they even have blackboards anymore?) each day.

I don’t think the teacher, Miss Masoner, was a religious fanatic, which is how one would probably be described today who did such an “unwoke” thing.

She was just a warm, generous lady who worked hard to teach children.

The bible verses, which taught such things as kindness, compassion and “thou shalt not kill,” may have even contributed to classroom decorum and learning in all other areas.

In today’s political environment, such a thing would probably be reason for removing the teacher from the classroom, at least in some communities.

Ben Stein, the well-known comedian, actor and attorney, recently appeared on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary, according to an email we recently received, and recited these lines which he had written:

“My confession:

“I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.... “Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.”

Many who heard the program probably said “yeah!” and felt blessed while others were outraged

Stein emphasized he was not making a joke.

The email we received said Stein referred to recent events, such as terrorist attacks –  school shootings and the like.

My parents’ generation wouldn’t have believed such a thing could have occurred in America.

By the way, ours wasn’t a particularly religious family. Our dad was a believer that church was for women and children, i.e. real men didn’t pray for help from anyone. We got a smattering of religious influence because Mother would wash us up and take us to Sunday school and church as often as she could get around to all her morning household duties in time to do it. (It wasn’t every Sunday.)

Probably this little urchin’s primary motivation to go was to see his friends and bring them home with us after church when Mother would have a big dinner prepared – expecting the onslaught – and then having pals around to play the sports that were in season afterward.

But back to Ben Stein, who expressed the opinion that the breakdown in American society began when Madalyn Murray O’Hair complained she didn’t want prayer in school (and, yes, we had a prayer in class every morning – usually by a student).

After O’Hair said she didn’t want prayer in school, the Supreme Court went along with it and the rest of the country said okay. (O’Hair and her son and daughter were later murdered by a former employee of American Atheists which Madalyn O’Hair founded.)

Then, Stein said, Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank children because it might warp their little personalities (like maybe turning them into school shooters, huh? –  our thoughts not Stein’s). And everybody said, okay.

He noted that Doctor Spock’s son later committed suicide.

“Now we’re asking why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong and why it doesn’t bother them to shoot strangers, their classmates and themselves,” Stein added.

He concluded his thoughts with this: “We reap what we sow.”

Hey. Didn’t St. Paul write something like that to the Galatians? And that was in the New Testament, i.e.:

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that also shall he reap.”

Somehow, this whole business doesn’t sound like a joking matter to Stein or most Americans.

Here’s the verse that Grady Lynn, our grade school classmate, knew by heart and recited when we were in probably the second grade. We’ll never forget him doing it – although, lazy person that we are, we have never memorized it ourself.

Psalm 23 King James Version:

1  The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3  He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

4  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5  Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Is it any wonder that David, the writer, was a man after God’s own heart?

He came closest to understanding the reality of an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent God.