“Selah”
My only experience of an earthquake was in the late eighties in St. Louis. I was sitting in the front room of our apartment when I heard the tinkling of some ceramic do-dads on the shelf on the wall. Accompanying the sound was a faint trembling sensation.
My first reaction was Huh? followed by my hearing the rattling of some ornaments that were atop our piano in the next room and the clinking of glasses and plates in the kitchen, one more room to the rear of our shotgun apartment. It was then I thought to myself: Earthquake?!
Given what I recall about the episode, I used the appropriate punctuation at the end of that sentence. Addled by the tremor, my inner dialogue was italicized – trembling – followed by a question mark (What the heck?) and an exclamation mark (Yikes!).
Then it was over.
I turned on the 8” x 12” black and white television that was the centerpiece of Jennie and my home entertainment system back then and had my suspicions confirmed. A small earthquake originating in the New Madrid fault had reverberated throughout St. Louis and down through the Bootheel of southeastern Missouri. I didn’t know it at the time, but the New Madrid fault is the most active seismic area in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Seismologists say hundreds of quakes occur in the New Madrid Seismic Zone every year, but the vast majority are too small to be felt by humans and can only be detected by sensitive instruments. An exception to the too-small-to-be-felt rule was the one detected by the sensitive instrument that was my butt nestled in our recliner that afternoon decades ago.
It got my attention. And then it was gone.
I have no idea if the Middle East in the psalmist’s day experienced earthquakes. I do know, however, that the psalmist employed earthquake metaphor in at least two psalms:
Psalm 11:3
“If the foundations are shaking (most translations use the word destroyed, but bear with me), what can the righteous do?”
Psalm 46:1-3
“God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Selah”
Selah is a mysterious word whose meaning is not fully understood. It is derived from the Hebrew root salal which means to “raise voices in praise” or “make the instruments louder.” It signals a pause in the psalms for a deep, restorative breath seasoned by gratitude, assurance, and praise.
Psalms 11 and 46 belong together as a call and response.
Psalm 11 is the call from below. Me recoiling in the recliner. What’s a body to do when the world is shaking?
Psalm 46 is the response from on high. An assuring word. Sit tight. You’re on solid ground – God rock.
I mention this seismology, psalmody, and psychology because many times in the past months I’ve been with people about whom I care deeply who’ve said in so many words – italicized with question marks and exclamation marks – The foundations are shaking! What’s a person to do?
I get it. I know where they’re coming from. You do, too. The alarm and angst I hear is not generated by the tinkling of trinkets on a shelf, but rumblings national and international with implications any human being with any sensitivity can recognize. Feel. Fret over. Fear.
One of the members of my PRC (Pastoral Relations Committee) asked me last week, “David, during these times how are you managing?” Good for Sue. She knows pastors are on the receiving end of others’ anxieties while at the same time grappling with their own. She, Rob, Celeste, and Don, my PRC, wanted me to know they care about my colleague Wendy and me. They know it’s tough to be a pastor these days. I thanked them for their concern.
I answered Sue’s question by:
Quoting Psalm 46 from memory. I’ve leaned on that psalm in past times of personal, national, and international peril and found it to be solid rock upon which to stand (or sit as it were or even lie in a fetal position and hold on tight) while things rattled around me.
Remembering counsel I offered my mother years ago.
I am the offspring of world-class worriers. My maternal grandmother fretted over every as-yet-unformed thundercloud that was sure to form around any existing silver lining. Bless her heart, she was a hand-wringing, brow-wrinkling, stomach-churning worrier. As somebody said, "Worry is a darkroom where negatives develop." Since new generations learn to worry by ingesting it from their forebears, my mother turned out to be a jittery chip off the old quivering block.
Yours truly determined early on he would steadfastly resist two traits he deemed deadly in his dear mother: smoking and worrying. I’ve never touched a cigarette. I refuse to give myself over to worrying without a fight. Part of my strategy in that resistance – the counsel I offered my mother – is to be careful about what I read, watch, and listen to and who I spend time with. In a word, I watch my intake diet.
My mother insisted on having cable news blaring all day. An intravenous PICC line of bad news reported through a megaphone of gloom and doom dripped into her consciousness from sundown ‘till sunset leaving her “fainting from fear and foreboding” (Luke 21:26). Worried sick.
On one visit after I insisted on turning off the television, I suggested she follow Paul’s advice in Philippians 4:8 and feed on a different diet. In Paul’s words, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” I am very careful about what I ingest, from whom, and from what source. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t stick my head in the sand to escape from what’s happening around me. I’m engaged and informed. Nor do I snack on Pollyanna platitudes to boost my spirits with artificial sweeteners. I strive to pass things through the colander that is Paul’s dictum and ingest only good stuff made of the best ingredients. As one of my brothers in faith said at last Saturday’s men’s breakfast, “Where my attention goes, my power flows.”
c. Practicing what works for me. Years ago, I named and claimed my go-to sources of refuge in times of stress and composed a mantra that underscores them: If I’m run up, read up, friended up, and prayed up, I’m up for anything. If I carve out time for prayer and journaling, seek out time to be in conversation with steadfast friends, set aside time to read things that stretch, uplift and inspire me, and take time for physical exercise – I’m good to go. Soothed. Sustained. Strengthened.
The above is the ABCs of what I told Sue and my PRC when asked how I’m managing these days. They then asked if they could gather ‘round me, lay hands on me, and pray for me.
Which they did.
Which further stilled whatever was shaking deep down within and planted my feet ever more firmly on “the rock that is higher than I” (Ps 61:2).
Which is what I pray for you as well.
Selah.
