The Rain That Satisfies Mown Grass

In 2015, when floodwaters devastated Richland County, South Carolina, the national cameras pointed at collapsed highways and submerged neighborhoods. But County Councilwoman Dalhi Myers drove to the places no helicopters circled — the mobile home parks in Lower Richland where elderly residents sat on porches watching brown water rise around their ankles, waiting for someone to remember them. She waded in herself. She called until FEMA answered. She made sure the forgotten addresses got the same resources as the affluent zip codes upstream.

That is the vision the psalmist aches for in Psalm 72 — not a king who simply keeps order, but one who delivers the needy when they cry out, who has pity on the weak and saves the lives of those in want. "Precious is their blood in his sight," the poet writes. Precious. Not expendable. Not invisible.

Notice what happens when that kind of justice takes root. The psalm says righteousness flourishes "like rain falling on mown grass, like showers watering the earth." Mown grass is grass that has already been cut down, already stripped bare. And God says the reign of true justice is like rain on exactly that ground — the ground that has been diminished, harvested, left exposed.

The Almighty measures every kingdom by one question: What happened to the person no one was watching?