As for changing the texts to fit the music, sometimes the texts are changed to fit one’s own subcultural norms. I am aware, for example, of one group that sings metrical psalms almost entirely but managed to leave out any reference to dancing in its versification of Psalm 150!

I’m left scratching my head over this one as well, and would appreciate any light Calvinists here might be able to shed on this.

Similarly, the rendering of a psalm in metrical form makes it no less a psalm than if it were chanted directly in the original Hebrew or in nonmetrical translation. On the other hand, Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven is probably better understood as a hymn inspired by Psalm 103 than a metred version of the latter. But I would see the difference between the two as more of a continuum than an ironclad separation.

One might argue that we of the slightly more Reformed persuasion exercise Believer’s Freedom rather than the regulative principle in turning Psalms into hymns ;)
Actually, that’s something that’s always kind of amused me- the super-Reformed types insist on using only Psalms in worship, but then, as you point out, put them in meter and have to paraphrase so much that they essentially end up being hymns.

Reading the Psalms makes me feel like a part of the living tradition of the God-human relationship (mostly from the human perspective).

In our church we have a psalm between the OT and NT lessons, sometimes said responsively and sometimes sung. During Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer (which we have as a separate short service every day, whether it’s right before a mass or not) we have a psalm, said responsively. (That is, the reader reads a verse, the congregation reads the next verse, and so back and forth.)

The only quibble I have is that on Sundays we often get only a portion of a psalm, rather than the whole thing. I suspect our rector would like to have complete psalms but perhaps doesn’t want to push people’s patience. One thing I that I think is great is that he does insist that we read the whole psalm. The lectionary sometimes puts a few verses in parentheses so people can skip them… these are generally the tougher verses about God hating sin and punishing the wicked. Our rector says, “It’s all God’s Word! Don’t leave anything out!” so we read those verses too.

In my own prayer life over the past four years that I’ve been a Christian, the psalms have played a significant role. I’ve gradually taken on the spiritual discipline of reading both morning and evening prayer daily, on my own. As a result, I typically read 2-3 psalms each day.

The psalms helped me learn how to pray — I didn’t have any idea, really, but I could read and pray through the Psalms, and discover there how to speak to God, with the Psalmist’s words when I didn’t know what to say on my own. They still help me to grow in prayer and I suspect they always will.

Interesting history.