Shadow

 

This week we are exploring antiphons, short – one sentence – prayers usually drawn from scripture that can provoke and evoke a whole world.  Abraham Heschel once said that words create worlds.  Because we hear so many words from politicians, pundits, preachers, and people posting on social media, we are exhausted by trying to live in so many worlds at once.  It can be holy to sit and stay in one world formed and fashioned by a sentence in scripture.  Hold this verse from Psalm 17:8

 

“Hide me in the shadow of your wings”.

 

I love the image of God with wings, God who hovers around us, God who swoops and soars, God who touches the sky and gracefully descends to perch on our soul. 

 

What do you want to hide from today?  Is there is a situation/setting/individual or group that you want to run away from leaving skid marks on the ground?  Note, this may be similar or the same to your thoughts from yesterday about what/where/from whom you wanted refuge! 

 

We do hide from others, and we hide from ourselves.  During Halloween week I used the image of a mask to remind us that we are a mystery to ourselves.  Hiding is not always a bad thing, sometimes it is a coping strategy amid a world that is too broken and bruised, amid our souls too exhausted and overwhelmed by it all.  Yes, we do need to step from the sidelines of life bravely at times and we also need refuge/rest to hide away from being “on” all the time.  Yes, we need to step into and out of the spotlight.  Recently, I have incorporated what I call “bench time” into my life.  I think about athletes who rest on the bench or go out for a few plays.  Bench time isn’t about being productive.  It is sitting still and letting the sacred catch up to my often too frantic pace of life.  In those moments, I can take a phrase like, “Hide me in the shadow of your wings”, returning to those words time and time again, twisting and turning this sentence in my mind like a Rubik cube to see what new patterns arise. 

 

The beauty of antiphons is you can carry the short sentence with you ~ write on a post it or your note app.  When stopped at a light, pray, “Hide me in the shadow of your wings”.  In the doctor’s office, in the grocery store, in church, before meetings, during meetings, when you feel that tiny vein in your neck pulse with anxiety because of what another person said, when you are bored, when you are tired, when you eat lunch, these words become a companion and commentary for your life this day.

 

May you take the words, “Hide me in the shadow of your wings” and my you find moments to draw close to the comforting warmth of God’s wings where you sense your belovedness this day. Amen.