Which Will It Be: Intentional or Unexpected?
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Bob Henry
May 5, 2024
Good morning, Friends, and welcome to Light Reflections. The scriptures I have chosen for today are familiar and from Matthew 11:28-30. I will be reading them from the New Revised Standard Version.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Since, next Sunday is both Mother’s Day and my last Sunday with you before I head out on my sabbatical, I thought today might be a good day to talk about the necessity of rest or sabbath in our lives.
Back when I was in seminary, I had a professor who talked a lot about the need for people to find the “pauses” in scripture. At first that was a difficult task, but it forced me to really consider how people communicated in the Bible and how well we translated it into our modern language.
Often in the pauses, whether it is Jesus pausing before asking a probing question, or the psalmist writing in a Selah, which is a musical notation written into the psalm text to require one to intentionally pause and reflect, I came to find the pauses to be often just as important as the words. And the same is true in life.
For our purposes this morning, I want to label these pauses Life Selahs (which I have talked about before at First Friends). Life Selahs can be defined as interruptions to all that is normal, necessitating or demanding a pause, that forces us to listen and look carefully at life, and reflect on our priorities and that which is truly important.
In my further exploration, I have learned that we can categorize two different types of Life Selahs:
1. Those that are planned, prepared for, and engaged willfully, and
2. Those that are unexpected, unplanned, and demand a pause almost grudgingly.
Probably, all of us remember a Life Selah of the 2nd type, just because they catch us off guard or in a rather defining moment. It could have been losing a job, getting a divorce, receiving a difficult diagnosis, experiencing the call that a dear loved one has passed, or even as simple as finding you have been blocked by someone on Facebook.
Whatever the event, it causes us to stop in our tracks, to realize the fragility of life, and center us again on what is important. I have been with several of you as you have gone through these experiences that demanded a pause. They are not easy.
I still remember the moment my office phone rang on July 30, 2014. It was Sue’s birthday and we had decided to celebrate after work, I dropped off our children at school and had just arrived at my office. I hadn’t even turned on my computer when the phone rang. When I picked up the phone, my life took an unexpected Life Selah.
I was not prepared for what I heard. I was informed that my parents were in a horrific head on collision, that they were not in good shape, and that I needed to get to them. I stumbled up the steps of my office in shock, told my secretary what had happened, got in my car and tried to head to the accident sight. I called Sue to inform her of the horrible news, I was having such a Life Selah that I went the wrong way and Sue had to help me get to the accident sight. This was not the Life Selah I needed or expected.
Now, many of you have met my parents and know that they came through this Life Selah, but it was definitely unexpected, unplanned, and not the pause any of us wanted or planned for.
I wish all my training, education, and pastoral experience could prepare me for these Life Selahs, but as I have learned on many occasions, it’s just not possible. No one can be fully prepared for these moments. They grab our fast-paced busy lives and present us with a new reality on the spot – and often with little or no warning.
Quaker Thomas Kelly said it well when he said we live so much of our lives in “an intolerable scramble of panting feverishness.” Do you know the “intolerable scramble of panting feverishness”? I do.
That is, until we are thrown an unexpected Life Selah and it quickly all comes to a screeching halt.
Often in these difficult times, we need guidance and wisdom from others who have already traveled these difficult roads and have something to share. As well, many of us turn to the scriptures or comforting authors in these times for the same reasons. We hope we can connect to the characters of scripture or another person’s experience and learn from them.
This is one of the reasons in difficult times, I find myself turning to the book of Psalms. Just as I said last week, I relate to the Psalm writer, David who often cried out in frustration, in confusion, in doubt seeking to understand life and what all God was up to. David (as is the case with many characters in Scripture) encountered Life Selahs – some unexpected and some of his own doing.
Part of pausing or experiencing Life Selahs for David was not just taking a pause, but literally learning to rest. Actually, it is a common theme in David’s psalms, here are just a couple of examples:
· My soul finds rest in God alone.
· Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to me.
Also, there are what are considered resting psalms such as Psalm 131 which one verse reads,
“But I have calmed and quieted my soul.”
And there are many Psalms which speak of restoring – which that word itself implies that to restore something one will need first to include rest. It is actually makes up part of the word: rest-ore.
And then I was reminded of Jesus’ invitation to us all in the scripture for today,
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.”
This is where we must turn and look at the first type of Life Selahs – those that are planned, prepared for, and engaged willfully.
Planning and preparing to take a pause and find some needed rest is one of the best answers to unexpected interruptions of life, but rest should also be part of our makeup and weekly, even daily, routine.
The God of the Old Testament said, “Remember the sabbath to keep it holy” meaning we should remember to keep sabbath rest as a normal part of our life. We need space in our lives. It is almost like the first type of Life Selah helps prepare us for the second type of Life Selahs.
You and I should intentionally pursue Life Selahs or pauses for rest. Yet most of the time, we skip intentionally pausing and resting and end up forced to pause - quickly, without much thought, and with much urgency.
I used to think not much of this, until I noticed my body understood this better than me. We all have worked too hard, been too stressed, did not take time to intentionally pause or rest, so our body shut down, we became sick, and were forced to take a Life Selah. It is literally how we are wired.
When we intentionally take a Life Selah and stop and allow ourselves to pause and rest from the chaos and confusion swirling around us, we often are more able to find a sense of stability or even serenity, of growth and health. The pause and rest clears our minds and helps us find focus and attentiveness to what God is doing in our midst. We may even see new possibilities, new opportunities which did not seem available in the moment, or renewed hope.
That is exactly why I am considering my upcoming sabbatical as an intentional Life Selah – a life pause and time of rest from all the doing.
As Anne Lamott says, people often want us to be human doings rather than human beings. The beauty of taking a Life Selah or intentional pause and rest is that it returns us to the healing space of human being.
Or go back a few years to the Anne Lamott of her time in the late 16th century, Madame Guyon, who said that in the midst of life we should find time to,
“Rest. Rest. Rest in God’s love. The only work you are required now to do is
to give your most intense attention to His still, small voice within.”
Boy, she could be Quaker.
Intentional Life Selahs, pausing and resting often goes directly with the process of holding oneself in the Light as I talked about last week. You almost cannot attempt to hold yourself in the Light if you are not able to find time to pause or rest.
Folks, it is clear that we all have limits and that there is a finiteness to our time and energy – especially in the midst of difficult situations or the second type of unexpected Life Selah.
I believe, we were created this way. And I believe needing to rest is both a divine and human attribute. If we acknowledge that of God within us, then we must also acknowledge the God who has taught us to intentionally rest.
It was God who instilled the need for Sabbath rest in the hearts of the Hebrew people and led by example by taking a rest at the end of the creation story.
Jesus continued this intentional practice, often during some rather difficult times, by going off and resting and allowing himself to center and reconnect to God’s will.
What I have learned in my studies is that rest is both a physical need and spiritual act. Rest is an act of surrender to a dependence on something greater than you and me.
And as Quakers it is also a centering-quality. That when we willingly take time to rest – we connect more fully with our inner light or the God within us and then also with the God within our neighbor.
Rest is restorative to our own soul and the soul of our community.
Just maybe the best thing we could do, that may change our world for the better is find more time for intentional Life Selahs, pauses, rest…amen to that, right?
And one last thing I want to emphasize, I don’t want someone to walk away from this morning thinking, Pastor Bob thinks we all need to take a nap or get more sleep (that may be a priority and needed for many of us), but for some people taking time to read a book, play a game, listen to music, do some type of craft or art, yoga, spend time watching a movie, laughing with a friend, experiencing nature or a sunset, even taking a drive, riding a bike, cooking a wonderful meal, or for some (not me), running, and the list goes on…all are ways we can rest our souls and re-center ourselves during intentional or unexpected Life Selahs.
Let’s now take an intentional Life Selah this morning as we enter waiting worship. Allow yourself to pause and rest this morning, feel the presence of this place and the people within, and take time to center in on the connection with that of God within you and your neighbor. Here are some queries to help you pause and reflect:
· When have I experienced an unexpected Life Selah? How did I respond?
· When have I intentionally entered a Life Selah? Do I need one?
· How might I develop a better discipline of rest in my life?