It is unfortunate that for someone like me--whose earliest memories include reading, hearing, memorizing Scripture--it is too easy for familiarity with the Bible to mean that the words lose their impact. Eugene Peterson's idiomatic translation The Message has helped me recover the impact that God intended and that I desperately need.
One good example is the "fruit of the Spirit" verses (Galatians 5:22-23), below with the English Standard Version (ESV) for comparison:
I do want to keep company with you and learn to live freely and lightly.
May I continually come to you, get away with you and recover my life.
May you show me
how to take a real rest,
walk with you and work with you;
may I watch how you do it.
Help me learn the unforced rhythms of grace, trusting that you won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on me.
Amen.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, our pastor has been regularly reminding us of the first words of Psalm 62:
For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.
In one of his reminders a few weeks ago, he shared this story about waiting in silence:
"I was listening to an interesting podcast earlier this morning, a conversation with a man named Jerome, who has a stutter and can go 45 seconds to a minute between words. The interviewer asked him how he deals with that, and Jerome had this interesting response. He said the silence between the words he had come to consider a prayer of intercession, asking God for the next word.."
Silence as prayer. An intriguing thought! And then, just a few days after hearing this from our pastor, I read these words at the beginning of Psalm 65*:
Silence is praise
Silence as prayer, yes, but even more, silence apparently can be praise.
As I reflected on this, I heard something like “why don’t you try being quiet?”.
The Holy Spirit? Or just my imagination?
Honestly, I don’t know. But as I reflected on what God might be inviting me to do, I found these words from Richard Rohr:
Centering Prayer is simply sitting in silence, open to God's love and your love for God. This prayer is beyond thoughts, emotions, or sensations. Like being with a very close friend or lover, where words are not required, Centering Prayer brings your relationship with God to a level deeper than conversation, to pure communion. (https://www.lindsayboyer.com/richard-rohr)
I had heard about Centering Prayer some time ago, but nothing "clicked" that helped me take action. The combination of the words from Psalms 62 and 65 with what Rohr says "clicked".
It is powerful to think that my taking a few minutes to just sit with God in silence may be a way he desires to receive praise. So I’ve made a few feeble attempts to do this, and something in me is saying “more!”.
*The Message
The painting is "At the dances" by Moldovan artist Rusu Ciobanu, ca 1957
Origen (185–254 AD)
from Against Celsus, Book VIII, Chap. 73
And as we — by our prayers —
vanquish all the demons that stir up war,
and lead to the violation of oaths,
and disturb the peace,
we in this service
are much more helpful to the kings
than those who go into the field
to fight for them.
And we do take our part in public affairs,
when along with righteous prayers,
we practice self-denying disciplines and meditations,
which teach us to despise pleasures,
and not to be lead astray by them.
And none fight better for the king
[and his role of preserving justice]
than we do.
We do not indeed fight under him,
although he demands it;
but we fight on his behalf,
forming a special army of piety
by offering our prayers to God.
From the Englewood Review of Books (May 1, 2009)
Quoted in Water, Faith and Wood: Stories of the Early Church’s Witness for Today, by Christopher Smith (Doulos Christou Press, 2003).
