I Held My Peace to No Avail

The last couple of months I have been purposely trying to focus on my inner life with Jesus and being present to Candy, my wife with Alzheimer’s, and reduce and refrain from external engagements and entanglements that distract and detract from peace and joy. I have turned down preaching opportunities and chosen to stay out of several on-line discussions in the realms of theology and religion, politics and public policy, social and cultural trends.

I have found this more challenging than I expected, and have made comments and had conversations that are external. Generally my thinking is that memes, slogans, Tweets, Face Book posts are so abbreviated that they miss the complexities and depth of the issues to which they want to speak. I often have the urge to write or say, “But there is much, much more to this. Have you considered … ?” Several times a day I tell myself, “I don’t need to get involved with this. My input doesn’t change anyone’s opinion anyway, and others are expressing alternate ideas better than I can.” Still, I have not resisted every urge to post or speak to something biblical or historical, or offer a documentable correction to clear factual error. I always have the hope that I do it in a way that prompts people to think rather than argue. Of course, I acknowledge that is a slippery slope into hubris, which I find so abhorrent when it surfaces in public life.

Then my prayer Psalms today brought me to Psalm 39:1b-3a, and I recognized myself.

I will keep a muzzle on my mouth as long as the wicked are in my presence.” I was silent and still; I held my peace to no avail; my distress grew worse, my heart became hot within me. While I mused, the fire burned.

Even before I got to Psalm 39 this morning, in my lectio divina this week I had been connecting Isaiah’s experience with the humility of recognizing that my words are not what changes people or even what they are paying attention to. This morning the Psalmist and the Prophet collided in my soul. After his stunning vision of God and searing of hot coal on his lips, God sent Isaiah speak even though the people would, “Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand. Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:9b-10)

The Psalmists response was to recognize personal, human mortality – “the measure of my days,” “how fleeting my life is.” (v. 4) As I have gotten older (now past the 70 years of Psalm 90:10), I have drawn considerable comfort from seeing myself as God’s “passing guest” (39:12) and am finding some solace in that image as I relinquish turmoil about externals to focus on inner peace and joy on my homestretch with Jesus. I suppose formulating all of this in writing and making it public could be an external distraction, but somehow clarifying my inner thoughts helps me understand and release them.