Be Still, My Soul

As I drove up Wornall just now from the grocery store down south where I like to shop. I listened to Bernard Helms solo piano cd---when I reached Waldo, I realized that Be Still, My Soul was the cut that was playing. The beauty of that music and my remembrance of phrases came to my mind--"be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side"; "bear patiently the cross of grief and pain"; "thy soul with courage wait"; "God faithful will remain." I am now listening to the five different piano arrangements of the hymn I have on my ITunes library. The one I am currently listening to is a medley of this hymn and Beneath the Cross of Jesus. As I drove through Waldo, through Brookside, through the Plaza and home, my heart made a strange turning toward each of the people I saw as I drove. This is a gorgeous day and so many persons were out in their yards working, persons of all shapes and sizes walking in Loose Park, the guy with his Ipod earbuds walking down the hill onto the Plaza, the myriads of groups of mostly women with shopping bags from Pottery Barn and Betsey Johnson, and Barnes and Noble with a cup of Starbuck's in their hands. As my heart turned to these people, listening through the piano music to my remembrance of the words "bear patiently the cross of grief or pain" and leave it to God "to order and provide", I was overwhelmed with a sense of that each of these persons carry their own cross in some way or form. Some of their lives might be free of crisis, but none is truly free of pain, from remembrances of the past, and anticipation of what is to come. Some may be deeply aware of a particular loss of something or someone missing from their lives; others blissful in the fact that their lives are so much richer and full of meaning for their lives now instead as they were, but the "as they were" still is in them, but now they are most joyful because they were most lost.

Each of those persons have their own stories that I can not and will not ever know. But I do know a bit about the human condition and here is what I thought: "Be Still our Souls", be still and know that there is one that does order and provide. Being still in our world is counter cultural, to be still amongst the cacophony that invades us from the "fightings and fears, within without" as another hymn sings.

God led me into several transcendent minutes as I drove, reminding me that each person I saw was a unique and precious person, with their individual moments of happiness, moments of mundanity and unique highs and lows, with worries and hopes, with chaos and calm, all in need somehow. I pray for each of them now, knowing that the grace I was given in order to experience all of this this day, is the grace that is alive in each of these men and women, some already recognizing it, some not, and that out of the places of sadness, seeds may be being planted for that joy that comes in the morning, we know not how. Often we know not why, and then this hymn yearns to be sung, even and perhaps most profoundly when loss or grief or pain lives so very close.

Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

Leave to thy God to order and provide;

In every change He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul;

thy best, thy heavenly, Friend

Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake

To guide the future as He has the past.

Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake;

All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul;

the waves and winds still know

His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul, though dearest friends depart

And all is darkened in the vale of tears;

Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,

Who comes to soothe thy sorrows and thy fears.

Be still, my soul;

thy Jesus can repay

From His own fulness all He takes away.

Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on

When we shall be forever with the Lord,

When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,

Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.

Be still, my soul;

when change and tears are past,

All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.