TEXT: Psalm 131
Let me begin with Nan C. Merrill's rendering of Psalm 131:
Most gracious Presence, let me not be arrogant, nor boast of my virtuous deeds; let me not seek fame or set my heart on riches of the world. Help me to calm and quiet my soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast; like a child that is quieted, be still, my soul.When I was away last fall, I struggled with a lot of anxiety—when I was away from here on Restorative Care but also when I went south to the deserts of Utah, Arizona, California and Nevada. I was anxious about travelling by myself. In part this was because of the state of my mind, because I didn't have a lot of self-confidence. Yet, when I crossed the US border and traveled down into Idaho and stayed the night at Couer d'Alene, I felt much more secure. There were still moments of anxiety when I was uncertain about what I was doing and what I was hoping to come out of the two weeks that I spent south in the deserts; I went without an agenda or without a particular destination in mind.
I shall hope in You, O Breath of my breath, from this time forth and forevermore. Amen.
I remember stopping during my sojourn—I spoke about this is December when I spoke about my experience in the desert of Southern Utah where I took one of the backroads and had stopped for lunch and experienced something of God's presence and that whole moving and profound experience. One of the things that kept floating through my mind during this trip was the Sermon on the Mount, especially part of the passage we heard this morning: "Don't worry about tomorrow; let the worries of today be enough for today." That's one of the passages that I've always struggled with as we live in our modern context, in our Western world. Some have suggested that we live in the age of anxiety. W.H. Auden, in the wonderful poem The Age of Anxiety in 1947, lamented the industrialization of the British Isles and the real anxiety that the workers were experiencing because the machines were taking their jobs. The worker's families had been doing the work for generations; but who were they and what were they to do now that the machines and mass-production had taken over their jobs?
Paul Tillich, the great liberal Protestant theologian in the middle of the 20th century, escaped from Nazi Germany. He, too, spoke about the age of anxiety. He spoke of this anxiety as non-being. Non-being. Anxiety has a way of robbing us of a sense of our humanity, of who we are, of who we are called to be, of the gifts that we might have that we can share in the world. It leaves us with this sense of non-being. Tillich spoke a lot about anxiety and non-being. In his book, The Courage to Be, he addressed this head on and referred to God as the Ground of Being.1
Back to this place where I had lunch in Southern Utah. Where I had lunch and had this revelation, there was this rock—a big bluff, actually—and on this rock you could see all these intricate lines. Obviously the lines were where the water had run down the rock over thousands and thousands of years; the water had created rivulet lines in the rock bluff. It was an intricate pattern that was absolutely beautiful.
What I imagine of Jesus when he preached the Sermon on the Mount, with friends gathered around him, is not a fiery sermon but a quiet reflection, challenging the status quo—turning the other cheek and what that meant, walking the second mile, offering your tunic. But I imagine there were moments on the mountain during this "sermon" of quiet and silence during which Jesus invited people to look around... from the mountain top to see the beauty of the world. Not just to see the beauty of the world, for there is a powerful beauty in desert lands, but to look around to the people around. "See the people who are in this with us together," Jesus might have said. "We are not alone no matter how much the domineering elites might want to divide and conquer and make us feel that we don't have enough. God has proclaimed that we do have enough if we share together."
And so as I was looking at these lines in the rock bluff, all I could think about was that I am not alone. I felt somewhat lonely at various moments, but not right then. Not only that this rock had been there for thousands and thousands of years, but I imagined that people had been coming to this rock bluff because it had such intricate beauty—a rock bluff out in the middle of nowhere. I imagined myself joining the pilgrims who went to this rock, with my own prayer shawl that I wore thinking of you folks and thinking of others back in Nelson—Janet and friends—and other friends scattered across the country and around the world. The night before my revelation in the desert I was standing under a clear night sky—in the desert you see the big sky—and saw the stars. I thought of an African proverb that comes from one of the African nations that says when a star falls in the sky, a life-story has been told. As I was walking back to where I was staying that night, a star fell leaving a great tail blazed across the night sky. I was reminded of this proverb and I thought of the many people whose lives we have celebrated over the years. I thought of the story of those lives, thinking, "No, we are not alone." And I saw the jet trails and lights and the steady lights of the satellites, thinking that there is no way we are alone. And thinking more deeply, I wondered that out there in the universe there is some other species, perhaps like us, looking up into the night sky wondering if there is other life. I wrote a poem that night about how we are not alone—more than just that God is with us. In the depth of the starry night, in the warm, hot desert, looking at the rock bluff with all its intricate beauty with its lines woven by God, and time and water, I realized that we are not alone.
As I stood there that night, taking in the starry night sky, I recalled how I had learned to meditate. Back in my early 20's, one of the images that was left with me was that as you are settling into your posture for meditating, imagine that you are leaning on the arms or leaning into the arms or leaning into God. Somewhat of an allusion to the hymn Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. That's how I learned to meditate and that's what I do as I begin my meditation. I imagine myself leaning into God where I can be, where I can know that God is my mother and I am the weaned the child and I can return for solace and for comfort and strength, leaning into God, knowing that I am, that I have being and meaning and purpose and that I am part of this wondrous world that God has made... where I can share, then, my gifts so that others may know that they, too, are precious in God's sight, that they, too, have meaning and purpose whether they be in Libya or Egypt or Tunisia or Burma or in the Congo or in Nelson or in London or wherever folk might be.
Most gracious Presence, let me not be arrogant, nor boast of my virtuous deeds; let me not seek fame or set my heart on riches of the world. Help me to calm and quiet my soul, like a child quieted at its mother's breast; like a child that is quieted, be still, my soul.____________________________________________
I shall hope in You, O Breath of my breath, from this time forth and forevermore. Amen.
1 Paul Tillich, The Courage To Be , New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952
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