I am always intrigued when images coalesce across meditation spaces. This morning, this line from Psalm 57 spoke to me. I wrote it in my sketchbook, putting it into a different line form:
Be merciful to me, O God,
be merciful
for I have taken refuge
in you; in the shadow of your wings
will I take refuge
until this time of trouble
has gone by. (Psalm 57: 1)
The language is from Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours, which uses the New Jerusalem Bible translation. Other translations use words like storm, danger, and catastrophe, but I love the way "time of trouble" sounds, and the verb choice, "has gone by" instead of "pass by" or "dies down."
I was thinking about this passage as I made the morning oatmeal, and I thought about a text that is bringing a friend comfort, the idea of the soul making a dwelling with God. Was it dwelling? shelter? home? It's slightly different than my soul rests in God.
And then I thought about the similarities: refuge and dwelling. In some ways it's like being rooted in God, but in other ways it's different. Rootedness reminds me of dirt and growing things. A shelter, a home, a refuge, a dwelling is less organic, more structural, perhaps more sturdy and protected.
No mystery why these passages are speaking to me in the perilous times we live in. And of course, the times are always perilous, but I'm not always so aware as I have been recently.
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