Sabbath Thought: Stillness

watercolor from a photo taken on Silent Lake, Ontario ©A.Rutherford  

"Be still and know that I am God."  Psalm 46:10

It's Sunday . . . the Sabbath.  I've been thinking about the whole concept of Sabbath, perhaps because I have been taking a sort of sabbatical with my life.

Worth thinking about the way God ordered the time of our lives . . . to have a "set apart" time of rest and re-creation every seventh day.  I'm sure the benefits were to be spiritual as well as physical, yet the sad story is that more often than not our Sundays are as frantic as our weekdays.  We have substituted the modern concept of "leisure" for true physical and spiritual rest, and re-creation has become recreation, which we pursue so actively.     Hmmm . . .  so much was lost when that little hyphen is dropped, not the least of which is a natural rhythm to our days, a measured way of experiencing our lives like the ebb and a flow of the tide,  or a turning round and round of our time rather like a dance.  

"Be still . . ."   Stillness is a special sort of silence . . . an attentive silence not merely the absence of sound.

O'Donohue in his book on Beauty says:

      "Stillness is the canvas against which movement 

       can become beautiful.  We can only appreciate 

       movement against the background of stillness.  

       Were everything kinetic, we could not know 

       what movement is.  As sound is sistered to 

       silence, movement is sistered to stillness.

Maybe that's why we fail to see the movement of God in our lives.  We are rarely truly still.  Maybe that's why we too often fail to see and truly experience each other at our depths, the kind of depth it takes to have real relationship.

‘“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it.’”  Isaiah 30:15

“The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."  Exodus 13:14

Praying

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

                      -Mary Oliver

I suppose the “blue Iris” is the symbol or metaphor for perfection.  It doesn’t have to be the “blue iris” to deserve your attention.  The prayer doesn’t have to be perfect . . . sometimes you only need to “be still.”

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