Still Points in a Moving World

Posted by Michelle L. | December 17, 2008 | 8 Comments

Many thanks to Leslie R. of Heaven’s Overlook for another beautiful guest post. You can read some of her previous posts here here here and here. Thanks so much Leslie!

The fact that Mary and Elizabeth found shelter in each other, and they weren’t even the same age is my favorite part of the story. Imagine Mary for just a moment. Finding out that she is pregnant, she travels one hundred miles on foot from Nazareth to the hill country of the Judean Wilderness to breathe with Elizabeth, who was quite a bit older, also pregnant, six months along. With reverence, Elizabeth greets Mary with the words, “Blessed art thou among women.”

Defined as cousins, which at the time could have meant actual relatives, but as the Bible Dictionary states, they were “kinswomen.” These two women, with great distance between their homes and ages, used words to heal and comfort in a time of confusion, wonder, and awe. In her greatest moment of need, Mary turned to God when she turned to Elizabeth. There is something sacred about the careful, uncommon relationships that can surface in our lives when we least expect them.

Can you imagine being pregnant with swollen toes that look like sausages, thick ankles, living with very little room to breathe because a baby is housed between your ribs? And when you are just about to give birth, weeks away, rather than screaming and complaining, you look up and sing a psalm to the Lord. Mary’s psalm pressed against heaven with the words: “My Soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior” (Luke 1: 46-47).

And in the form of a psalm we hear the same hushed verses of Hannah, another woman full with child, singing to the Lord, “My heart rejoiceth in the Lord and mine horn is exalted in the Lord” (1 Samuel 2:1). Both of these women looked up as they sang psalms threading to heaven. Do your remember being pregnant, or wishing to be pregnant and filling the air with psalms? In know there were some days when a psalm was the last thing that graced my lips. Oh, how quickly the Lord teaches me.

“There are wide areas of our society from which the spirit of prayer and reverence and worship has vanished. Men and women in many circles are clever, interesting, or brilliant, but they lack one crucial element in a complete life—They do not look up.” ~~~Howard W. Hunter

In an ever-moving world these women, perhaps in their most difficult moments, found a way to stillness. I love the words of the poet T.S. Eliot who describes this notion of finding the “still points in the turning world.” During perhaps the busiest time of this year how are you holding stillness enough to sing your psalms to the Lord? My syllables are scattered and sacred where the verses blend behind the sounds of one child asking for a snack, the other reading me Amelia Bedelia, and the other one memorizing facts for a science test. Long verses blend while I am bedside, trying to shape my muddled thoughts into prayers at both ends of the day. With this blessed and broken-down soul, the Lord is always there for me, for just one more day, smoothing the covers up over my shoulders when I ask, “Who is going to take care of me?”

My psalm is always filled with the women in my life who have blessed me because of their words and shelter, such as those of Elizabeth to Mary. Here’s wishing you some stillness in your moving world. Here’s a hope that you will look back on this year and find five “still points” that will draw you closer to where you have been and where you are going. With five points to a star, perhaps sitting in stillness and gathering in will guide you closer to the Savior during this holiday season. And of course, we would love to hear about one or two of your still points.

Category: Daily Special

Comments

8 Responses to “Still Points in a Moving World”

Emi
December 17th, 2008 @ 10:38 am

Again, Leslie, beautiful.

Your words, just as spires, point to heaven.

For me personally a still point seems to always flow when I am within the walls of our holy temples. Outside the temple, I typically feel restless when I am still (so much to do, so little time!). Yet I cannot think of a time when I was inside the holy walls where the still and calm, wrought by the spirit, brought restlessness.

Perhaps this is because temple walls serve to both hold in the holy as well as bridge the gap between here and our close heavenly world.

Thank you for helping me today, amidst the check-marks on my list of holiday to-do’s, to contemplate the blessing of my womanly role and the connections we all have as women — even to the wonderful and miraculous roles of Mary and Elizabeth.
m&m
December 17th, 2008 @ 2:09 pm

I have been trying to record and remember more tender mercies as still points in my life.

Thanks for this post.
annie
December 17th, 2008 @ 3:33 pm

Lovely. Thank you for this.
Melissa
December 17th, 2008 @ 4:19 pm

I had to come back to this because as I was reading it this morning, by little girl bounced up with a request to play a game. I swooshed her away (wanting to read for a while instead of play) and then realized a game, in its way, is a point of stillness. A point of connection. Life seems to be like that–so many conflicting points. Thank you for this lovely post and for giving us the opportunity to think about stillness and psalms.

I love the Pres. Hunter quote.
Emily M.
December 17th, 2008 @ 11:20 pm

I find stillness folding laundry. I don’t know why that is, but whenever I take the time to attack the pile, I feel this deep spirit of gratitude. I think it’s leftover from my mission, when I watched women do laundry by hand and vowed I would never ever complain about it back in America again.

I haven’t kept that promise. But I found some nice stillness folding laundry today.

And I love the relationship you paint between Mary and Elizabeth. This was a wonderful post.
Lee Ann
December 18th, 2008 @ 12:54 pm

Not quite sure whether to thank you or not…

I was in my car, pulling out of the temple parking lot. While pondering on how the temple is a point of stillness for me, and how singing in the ward choir this year has also given me peace and an added measure of the spirit, I backed into someone else’s car.

Luckily, no one was hurt, and the cars didn’t get damaged, so, yeah, thank you! This was a timely post.
Leslie R
December 18th, 2008 @ 1:02 pm

I am so glad that this post spoke to some of you.
Le Ann, I am so sorry to hear about the collision. Bless you!

Emily, I too feel stillness while doing laundry. Thank you for reminding me that the five points of stillness do not always have to be grand, but can be the common things that make up the hours of a day.

Melissa, as you well know, sifting for good quotes takes time, so I am glad that these words found a place in your day.

Emi, Thank you for finding the spiritual here. I love to chew the fat about the secular topics, but it is nice to have those spiritual friends who take me to higher ground. I was planning to go to the temple before Christmas, and your words are pushing me there even more so.
Strollerblader
December 19th, 2008 @ 12:54 am

Ironically, I find one of my still points when I am moving. In the mornings, after I’ve gotten the 3 older kids off to school, and the youngest is in his stroller, we go on a walk or strollerblade. As I push along, plugged into my mp3, I find stillness and meditation. I keep an open dialogue going with God as I breathe in the fresh air and settle down from the busyness of getting the kids out the door.

Music can also bring an almost instant stillness amidst hectic-ness. The right music can instantly calm and focus my soul.

And when I occasionally get the opportunity, being alone to observe or be present in nature certainly brings stillness and humility.

“Be still and know that I am God.”

Thanks for the post. I love that it has caused me to ponder for those still points in my life and to seek them. Merry Christmas!