whole life and means that I will still be within God’s cognizance when I get to the end of it. The psalm wonders not only at God’s involvement but at the process itself. It is very ordinary but also extraordinary, as extraordinary as the process whereby God brought the world into being and brought Israel into being. Talking in terms of being embroidered “in earth’s depths” takes up the image of “mother earth” and turns it inside out—it is as if our mother is the earth. The psalm is a piece of poetry