TREE OF MEMORY
©Kathy Hastings Used with permission.
Psalm 46:1-3 (ESV)
God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
Selah…
Any reader of the Psalter will note a mysterious word that seems to randomly pop up between its verses from time to time. The word Selah is indeed a mystery to Biblical scholars as well. Most agree that it was likely a musical term that signified a rest or pause within the text.
A number of years ago two friends and myself were discussing the idea of creating a worship service at our local Baptist affiliated church that would emulate the contemplative models of worship such as Taizé. Having been to Taizé in the Bourgogne region of France as well as participating in several stateside Taizé service transplants, we each longed for a similar kind of expression of worship. An expression, being Protestant and artists by vocation, which incorporated a love for the proclamation of God’s word and our creative sensibilities with prayer spoken and unspoken. Thus, the Selah Service was born replete with the choruses of Taizé as well as my own original music combined with Biblical readings often focusing on the Psalms as well as such Christian traditions as the Celtic church. The service was enhanced with candlelight and various artistic symbols and renderings that were either displayed or projected on the walls and ceiling of the geodesic dome in which the church gathered.
Over the years, this monthly “experiment” turned into a more serious vocation for me leading Selah services and working with churches to help them develop their own expression of contemplative worship. One of the more memorable ones was a modified Selah for 8,000 people which took place in a large entertainment center for a national youth conference. One might think that the positive response we received was due to the beautiful Celtic music and choruses that were performed or the inspiring projections of sacred images that accompanied the service. Yet for many, it was the four minutes of silent prayer in the middle of the service that was to be the most profound part of the experience. That’s right, four minutes of uninterrupted, absolute silence with the only sound being the air moving through the center’s air ducts. Many people I spoke with afterwards had never attended a worship service that gave such a priority to silent prayer, let alone being quiet with 8,000 other believers in Christ.
Our regular Selah service, like the Taizé model, normally includes ten minutes of silent prayer. It is just one of many examples of how Christian churches and groups are reclaiming the stillness in their expression of faith. To borrow a new phrase, “Quiet is the new loud.” Embracing more contemplation in our worship offers some positive contributions for churches struggling with just what worship is to be.
Indeed, the very word worship is used so often to describe so many different things in the Christian subculture that I believe it has completely lost it’s salt. Perhaps the clarity of thought and content such as Psalm 46 will help get us back to a clearer understanding of what it is to worship.
Psalm 46:4-7
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Selah…
Notice here that first and foremost, there is a “remembering” of who God is – the Creator and giver of all life. For all of the writers of the Psalms, worship is about remembering. It is remembering who God is and, equally important, who we are as His created beings. David, in Psalm 103, succinctly portrays this notion when he writes:
As for man, his days are like grass;
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more. (vs. 15-16)
He then follows this sobering statement with these contrasting words of hope rooted in God’s eternal nature:
But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
The LORD has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all. (vs. 17-19):
It is this remembering that gives us the hope that God can be trusted to watch over every detail of our existence. Our only logical response to this wonderful reality is to bow before Him in worship and gratitude. This way of blessing God might be expressed by raising “a loud shout to the rock of our salvation” (Ps. 95:1) or it may equally and most profoundly be expressed in just being still before Him…
Psalm 46:8-11
Come, behold the works of the LORD,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
The LORD of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Selah…
At what point in the ongoing discussion about prayer and worship did we decide that contemplation and meditation were bad words? It arises from a legitimate concern over the New Age movement defining these terms as techniques that take oneself outside the realm of the mind into a what is presupposed as a more potent and yet completely subjective understanding of truth.
In the Psalms we find an alternative model of seeking the truth through a different kind of contemplation and meditation than that offered by New Age philosophy. Its practice begins in our God-given minds as we humbly come before Him remembering His past works and faithfulness in our lives. From the reassurance derived from this process of believing and God’s choosing to be merciful, we experience what it means to have faith and hope.
As I think of this, I am reminded again of the weary and faith-drained Elijah when he found himself at his wits end hiding from Jezebel on Mount Horeb (I Kings 19). Significantly, it was not in the strong wind or earthquake or fire that God revealed Himself, but rather it was in the thin silence that the prophet finally heard God’s reassuring voice.
In conclusion, what better context could there be in which to pray and wait upon the Lord than in the community of other believers in prayer and stillness? And we might also consider, as we open our church doors to those outside the faith, what an impact this oasis of quiet might have, by God’s willing spirit, on hearts and minds battered and overwhelmed by the din of our modern culture which forever seeks to quell that still small voice.
-This article originally appeared in Youthworker Magazine.
