Psalm 83 “O God, be neither silent nor still.”

by: Bob Henderson

Few endeavors are more beautiful than a winter hike, especially across a snow-hushed landscape. People who dwell in snow country often remark how after winter thunder and a blowing storm, utter silence can pall the snowscape. Poets call this preternatural, because it seems to exist so eerily beyond nature. No bird song, no whistle of the wind, no rodents rustling in the underbrush; it’s the sound of sheer silence. Yet in the silence I sometimes hear a whispered invitation to escape the tumult of busy-ness, to be still, to relax, and to embrace the bleak winter beauty of God’s creation.

Such invitations are sporadic – almost holy – as more often we need a sense that someone is near, that companionship and presence is available. This search for company is strongest when we fear isolation or feel danger. When people long ago feared the stalking of their enemies, they cried to God to break the silence. So do people now; so it is with us now.

Whole seasons, like winter, or Lent, bring with them associated experiences. When we most crave the direct voice of God, it can be most difficult to hear. When we most desire company, we feel most alone. In these times, stillness does not produce solitude but isolation. These experiences are best interrupted by an earnest cry: “O God!” and followed by practices that usher in God’s shaping presence. Prayer, acts of humble service, worship, intentional community work together to transform isolation into solitude, busy-ness into community.

Paul Tillich, one of our country’s greatest theologians, knew something of this dynamic. In his seminal work, The Shaking of the Foundation, he wrote, “Sometimes a wave of light breaks into our darkness and it is as if a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted . . . sometimes it happens that we receive the power to say ‘yes’ to ourselves, that peace enters into us and makes us whole, that self-hate, and self-contempt disappear and that our self is reunited with itself.”

Prayer: Gracious God, when you seem long absent from my disturbed heart, provide me with a sign of your presence, giving me the quiet and peace that I seek. Amen.