Psalm 62 - Stillness (Finally)

Yes, it has been a few days since I last shared. Jetlag. Email digout. Short-week sermon prep. Scout needing LOTS of attention. And LOTS of rain. I don’t know what our exact rain totals were over the last 4-5 days but it is well over 4-5” of rain. The Ohio River between Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky is well out of its banks and at a flood stage not seen in years around here. So, the camera didn’t get out much (it needed a break as well).

But Psalm 62 has been floating around for me (pun intended) during these last six rainy days. It is a beautiful song of finding peace and refuge. My first stirrings with it was in the middle of the night Thursday to Friday when a line of storms moved through and I recorded this video and this photo at about 1am looking through the screen out our back windows.

I think that photograph was right as a flash of lightning lit everything up. I don’t remember seeing rain like that around here in the decade+ that we’ve lived here. I read this Psalm while I listened to the torrential rain and the sound of the storm and was grateful for the shelter in which I found myself but also thinking of those who didn’t have that literal (or figurative) shelter. The Psalmist writes:

My soul waits quietly for you
From you comes my deliverance
Only you are my rock my redemption
My haven: I shall not be moved

I’ll admit, my soul wasn’t feeling particularly quiet or still at that moment. I was concerned about our basement flooding (which it has done a few times in lesser storms than this) and also, like I said, thinking about others who did not have a safe and dry place to be at that moment. And of course, there are other storms blowing right now that are causing souls to not wait all that quietly but instead souls feeling anxious, worried, and afriad.

The days that followed were more of the same. Gratefully not quite storms like that one above but still rain, rain, and more rain (anyone want to come and mow the forest that is my lawn currently?).

But the Psalm shifts a few sections later while still holding to a similar sense.

Yes, wait quietly my soul
For you only do I hope in silence
Only you are my rock, my deliverance
My haven: I shall not be moved.

Do you see the shift in tense and mood? Do you see the change in the 2nd line that it isn’t about deliverance but intsead finding hope? It feels like something has moved for the Psalmist - it feels like s/he has come to a place where that waiting and that stillness is very present and in-the-moment.

This morning, we finally came to a place where the clouds parted, the rain fully stopped, and there was a stillness.

The flooding is there, yes. More so at the lake than I’ve ever seen. But I can see the places where the water level has started to go down. And the water had a beautiful stillness and mirror-like quality. Even in these photos of the flooded areas, I see places that are places of sanctuary, safety, and refuge.

There was also this reflective moment with this tree.

In the midst of storms, even as the flood still may be present, may you find places of stillness, of hope, of deliverance, of rest, of light.

A Quick Book Review - Orbital

One of the great things to do on a dreary, rainy afternoon is to read. On Sunday afternoon under a blanket with Scout curled up at my feet, I finished an absolutely beautiful but simple novel. It isn’t one where a lot happens. It isn’t a mysterious thriller or an action packed read but it is slow, quiet, and reflective. It is called Orbital by Samantha Harvey. It won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 2024 and it is simply beautiful. It is a day in the life of a group of astronauts on the ISS from different countries taking in the experience of the many orbits they go through in a day. It is personal as their stories are shared but also lyrical in the way that the experience of space and seeing this beautiful world is felt. There are some passages in it that are just achingly beautiful but this one especially for me.

With each sunrise nothing is diminished or lost and every single one staggers them. Every single time that blade of light cracks open and the sun explodes from it, a momentary immaculate star, then spills its light like a pail upended, and floods the earth, every time night becomes day in a matter of a minute, every time the earth dips through space like a creature diving and finds another day, day after day after day from the depth of space, a day every ninety minutes, every day brand new and of infinite supply, it staggers them. ¹

I read the last quarter of the book while having the live stream of the earth from the ISS running in the background. I highly recommend that practice if you read the book.

Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed

PS - Scout using her natural instincts this morning on one of the not-so-flooded areas at the lake.

1. Harvey, Samantha. Orbital: A Novel (Booker Prize Winner) (p. 194). (Function). Kindle Edition.