THE LAST RIVER MILE

I often spend a day at a lakeside cabin owned by some friends of ours. The view is spectacular, and the woods all around are glorious. It is especially warm and welcoming in colder weather when I can make a fire in a wood stove as part of my experience. This is one of my “holy places” or “thin places” where God and I can enjoy some time together undisturbed. It is a setting that evokes one of my life-verses from the Bible: “Be still, and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10.)

In Hebrew, the imperative verb translated as “be still” is from a word meaning “to cease striving; to relax or to sink down.” In the context of all of Psalm 46, it really isn’t about an individual calming of the soul, as I tend to define it at the cabin at the lake. The psalmist speaks very specifically about situations that cause human beings to strive. Verses 1-3 begin with the overwhelming power of nature, over which the original hearers of Psalm 46 had little or no control. Mountains falling and waters roaring would have reminded folks of their utter, terrifying helplessness. The psalmist then switches to images of the ultimate expression of human striving – warfare. Where we cannot control creation, we battle to control one another. Here the writer of Psalm 46 denotes what God’s act of “stilling” looks like: ending wars all over the globe and destroying the weapons of war. Being “still”, then, is to end our striving to make sure that WE prevail over THEM. It is to abandon the idolatry of assuming that anything or anybody other than God is a “refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” (Verse 1.)

So being still and knowing God is not just generating good vibes within me by a fire inside a lake cabin. It’s more than, “don’t worry; be happy.” It’s not just an individualized thing, as we in comfortable Western cultures tend to make everything in faith. And it is certainly not just passive. It is very collective and active decision first to still my own heart by relinquishing my illusions (false gods!) of control. And it is joining with others who are doing the same. What this “breaking the bow and shattering the spear” looks like will vary widely, depending on where it is that striving is causing damage. It may be actively working against the dismissive cruelty of criminalizing those who are unhoused or mentally ill. It may be standing in peaceful solidarity with those who are victims of unjust or illegal detainment in an increasingly militarized country. It may be crying out in defiance of those who would turn a blind eye to human trafficking and the victimization of children and youth for predatory purposes. However it manifests itself, “being still” is joining with God in the dismantling of unhealthy, destructive striving.

It’s not enough for me to feel a sense of personal “stillness” from a day at our friends’ lake cabin. It’s about what I will carry from there into the days that follow.

I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.