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The news everyday is full of upsetting information, isn’t it. From political and socio-economic conflicts to the news this morning of a massive earthquake near Japan that has sent a tsunami wave rolling across the Pacific, everywhere you look there is a reason to be tense, nervous, anxious, and unsettled.

Of course, for many of us the bigger world’s news is less important to us than the news of the smaller world we inhabit with our families and friends. A close friend of mine is living at her mother’s house during what are sure to be her mother’s final days. I know of others whose family lives are being mangled by issues of substance abuse, of violence, and economic turmoil. Everyday I meet people who seem to be coping with their fight against cancer, their struggle against chronic pain or illness, their concern for distant family members who are in trouble that can’t be relieved. The church I pastor has a lot of connections to the military community, and I know many families who are in a constant state of motion and commotion as they anticipate or endure the deployments of loved ones to battle zones.

Thus it is; and likely, thus it has ever been.

And so, we find this wisdom in Psalm 131:

Lord, my heart is not proud; I don’t look down on others.
I don’t do great things, and I can’t do miracles.
But I am calm and quiet, like a baby with its mother.
I am at peace, like a baby with its mother.

The painful, frightening truth about life in this world is that most of the things that affect us are beyond our ability to control. The next ring of the phone, the next twitch of heart muscle, the next visit to the doctor, could be the harbinger of some awful trouble. The next news flash, the headline on the next morning paper, the next urgent email could bring news of some occurrence that will affect our lives in ways we cannot at this very moment imagine or even prepare for. Whatever “control” we think we exercise over our lives is often simply an illusion, a story we are telling ourselves to quieten our fears and help ourselves get through the day.

The wisdom of scripture is a different wisdom. Rather than “play-at” or “pretend like” we are in control, Scripture advises us to give up. You aren’t in control, and you can’t be in  control. The peace you crave in the center doesn’t come as a result of finally being in charge of everything that happens– it comes in accepting that you cannot be in control of or in charge of hardly anything at all. “Lord, my heart is not proud; I don’t look down on others, I don’t do great things, and I can’t do miracles.” I can’t make the war stop, the earth quit quaking, the rain stop falling. I can’t make it all better for my child, my spouse, my friend. I can’t even make one hair on my head turn dark or gray by my own efforts.

But, “I am calm and quiet like a baby with its mother. I am at peace, like a baby with its mother.” Like a baby with its mother, I trust in One greater than I to take care of it all. I rest, at peace, knowing the only important things I can know– I am loved, I am Beloved, and I am surrounded by the One who is, in fact, All. In this place of safety and comfort, the rain on the roof can even sound like a comforting backdrop to my contented rest.

This psalm ends with an admonition to the people of God, in case we hadn’t been able to figure out what this short little song means: “People of Israel, put your hope in the Lord
now and forever.” Children of God, beloved ones, the only way to find that peace you crave is to hope in, trust in, God and God alone. Now and forever.

The spiritual wisdom offered by the Bible in this regard is echoed throughout all the world’s spiritual traditions. The true peace available to us comes not as we exalt ourselves more highly and seek power over more and more people and things. The true peace we are made for and are meant to enjoy comes as we become smaller and humbler, closer to the ground and simpler in our way of living. Do not hope in wealth, or power, or youth, or strength, or any vain and passing thing. Be like water, which always finds its balance by seeking the lowest level. Do not pile up treasure for yourself made out of the stuff of this world– it can only corrode, can only be lost or stolen, can only fade in value and beauty.

O Israel, all you who are Children of God– hope and trust in the Lord. Rest in the Lord’s protection, in the Lord’s provision, surrounded by the Lord’s loving presence. Accept what each day brings you as what the One who loves you wants you to have. Give thanks for all that comes your way, teaching yourself to see that everything you receive has come to you by means of the loving will of the One in whom you live and move and have your being. Know yourself truly– not as a master of all you survey, but as a simple babe napping contentedly in the arms of the One who loves you as a mother loves her child.

Let your life be like an extended, everlasting experience of those precious moments of quiet and close communion shared by a baby and a mother just after feeding and just before napping. Put your hope in the Lord, now and forever.

A personal note–

One of my favorite spiritual songs is a setting of this song by John Michael Talbot, a former rock and roll musician who turned his back on all that stuff and took up the life of a simple monk. You can hear it here. I learned it early on when I came back to the church and was beginning the journey that led to me becoming a pastor.

I was a music leader for a retreat, and just felt uncomfortable. I was brand new at being back in church, back in a spiritual community. I had been gone from church a long time, and wasn’t sure how all that I had experienced could fit into some kind of new life as a follower of Jesus. I hoped that it could and that I could become some kind of disciple, but everywhere I looked it seemed like lots of other folks had figured out all the things I was still baffled by.

Anyway, in my role as music leader I did the musical accompaniment for morning prayer. I chose this song, and sang it toward the end of our prayer time as we prepared for the day ahead. I had chosen it as my own prayer– I knew that there was something in those words that I needed for my life, some lesson I needed for myself. Afterward, a brother on the retreat pulled me aside. “I know your gift,” he told me. “You are like the songbird that wakes up the world. Thank you for waking us up this morning.” What I had sung for others out of my own need had been a way for someone else to see what I could not see, for all my effort in looking. What I could not see, and did not believe could yet be true, another was able to see and share with me. I, too, had a place on the lap  of God.

This was a first experience of many of learning that real joy doesn’t come in figuring it all out for myself; real joy comes in others helping me to discover what God has been doing all around me, and in me, and even perhaps through me. To quiet oneself, to rest in the presence of the One whose Love brings all into being and helps it persist from one breath to the next, and to receive your life from moment to moment as the gift that it is, and then give it away moment to moment as the gift it was meant to be–

Well, every now and then I find that spot. Every now and then, I know that peace.

Every now and then.

Maybe you can find it more often than that, and share it with others who hardly ever find it at all.

Blessings!

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