I fall in love with words sometimes.
Galoshes. Malarkey. Inosculate. Eloquent. Whimsy. Boysenberry.
When pensive appears on a page, I’m already imagining subtle facial expressions in sunlit windows.
When a descriptor of bashful stops by, my cheeks brighten in a brush with empathy.
I had the word Agape tattooed on my foot over ten years ago and I have yet to be sorry.
It was a hot summer when I first became acquainted with Selah.
We were working a camp—admittedly, one of our favorites due to the abundance of shady trees and cabin showers with a steady stream of hot water. It was the second to last week of my most difficult summer, and we were exhausted. A teammate of ours from the school led music that week. Between a sweaty afternoon of kickball and a night of teenagers refusing to go to sleep, we were mid oh-how-he-loves-us when he called for Selah between bridges. Once. Twice. A few times more.
Selah is common in music, we just never say it. It isn’t meant to be said. It isn’t even entirely understood.
It’s just a pause.
A breath.
Some stanzas of purposeful silence.
Selah.
Is it any wonder that there were so many in the psalms when David was emptying his soul.
It’s been weeks. Every night, I sit cross legged on my bed with my bible, my journal, and nothing to say. The view from here looks a lot different when everyone has the same weight of the world on their shoulders. I start. Stop. Reconsider. Try again. And always—every night—land on the same four words.
‘’Jesus...people are dying.”
The words sweep me under with their overwhelming implications. What history taught us. The ancestors I’ve lost. What science can’t answer. What leadership won’t do. How fear behaves, unbridled and passionate.
I don’t even know what to ask. I just sit in my hovel, with open hands and a crushed heart, waiting for... something. He’s got to have something to say. Certainly the bottle of my tears He’s kept has a label. My moonlit bedsides are soaked in heavy questions, wondering where on earth He IS in— *gestures vaguely*—all of this.
Nothing. There was nothing.
Silence.
Selah.
It’s Good Friday. Did you know? With the event they label “everything that’s been going on,” I’ve forgotten until now. But with every Good Friday, my thoughts always wander to the disciples. The Son of Man—beloved, sacred, everything the prophets foretold and heavy with the expectation of ending oppression—was dead. This was new territory. Grief wrapped it’s hands around so much more than initial loss. All of it was for nothing. He wasn’t who He said He was. They were so close to freedom and it was ripped from them. What world were they even living in, if Jesus was gone? Where is God in this?
Selah.
I know a God who is holy. Who knows all things. I know a God who planned Sunday, and the slow resolution of hope. I know a God who restores, and retains purpose. And that’s why I struggled for words for so many nights. Pat answers of cosmic chess matches couldn’t and can’t resolve this deep well of sorrow comprised of rising death tolls and dwindling supplies. I cannot let go of the fact that they are important. Even if the virus disappeared tomorrow, the cost has already been incalculable.
...I think, in His kindness, God provides us time to grieve the things that matter.
...I think, in His kindness, He was giving me time to express that these things matter.
...I think, perhaps, that is what Lament is for.
Selah.
I’m certain He heard every single one of them in the days between Friday and Sunday. I know He was aware of every footfall and quiet sob. He could keep time with all the pacing feet and trailed off, candlelit half-prayers. Since the days in the desert when Hagar called Him by name, He has never ceased being the God Who Sees.
I don’t know when our Sunday will be. I don’t know how to get through this more than anyone else. I don’t have any words of wisdom or suggestions on how to make it better. All I have is the value of a musical interlude, used to communicate with our Maker when words fail.
…When the next stanza rises, maybe He’ll come to you like He did me and whisper something to the effect of: “In the thick of this, can you trust that I can see some things that you can’t?”
Selah.
