{"id":1285,"date":"2024-08-29T16:38:51","date_gmt":"2024-08-29T16:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/?p=1285"},"modified":"2024-08-29T16:38:52","modified_gmt":"2024-08-29T16:38:52","slug":"the-shadow-of-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/2024\/08\/29\/the-shadow-of-death\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shadow of Death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"681\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem177-681x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-161\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem177-681x1024.jpg 681w, http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem177-200x300.jpg 200w, http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem177-768x1155.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem177.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 681px) 100vw, 681px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,<br>I will fear no evil&#8221; (Psalm 23, ESV of the Christian Bible)<\/em><br><br>Death always rides on the back of the living,<br>unnoticed and unobtrusive,<br>but ever-present.<br>Sometimes we become aware of it<br>through a shiver down the spine<br>and sudden tightness in the chest<br>that catches our breath<br>and holds it.<br>But then we breathe in &#8211;<br>a deep breath of relief &#8211;<br>and forget;<br>those who don&#8217;t<br>become insane<br>or insufferable.<br>We forget until the moment<br>it&#8217;s time to turn our back to the world,<br>take our final bow<br>and let our death face it.<br><br>Huastec statue from the Tampico region (M\u00e9xico), artist unknown;<br>displayed in Louvre Museum, Paris, France<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,I will fear no evil&#8221; (Psalm 23, ESV of the Christian Bible) Death always rides on the back of the living,unnoticed and unobtrusive,but ever-present.Sometimes we become aware of itthrough a shiver down the spineand sudden tightness in the chestthat catches our breathand holds it.But [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[197,32,23],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1286,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions\/1286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}