Be still

"Be still, and know that I am God." — Psalm 46:10

I read the Forty-sixth Psalm this morning and stopped where I always stop, which is the tenth verse. Be still, and know that I am God.

I have read this verse more times than I can count and it has never said the same thing twice, which is how I know it is scripture and not a bumper sticker. Some mornings it is a command and I hear it the way I hear my mother's voice telling me to sit down and stop fussing. Some mornings it is an invitation and I hear it the way I hear the evening when the house goes quiet and the chair is waiting and there is nothing left to do.

This morning it was neither. This morning it was a description of what was already happening. The house was still. The heat had not come yet. I was at the table with the Bible open and I was not doing anything and the not-doing was the knowing. I did not have to try to be still because July had done it for me.

I think there is a kind of faith that comes from the body before the mind catches up. The body knows when to stop. The body knows when the heat is coming and the answer is to sit. The body has been reading this verse longer than I have been reading it with my eyes, and the body understood it first.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.