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cloverfield/lectio/psalm 4/quake
This morning psalm 4 meditative reading, verse 4, “Quake, and do not offend./Speak in your hearts on your bed and be still.” An extended time of stupid thinking on “quake.” For all the concern about moral trespass in much of contemporary evangelicalism (for all its foolishness, yet the most vibrant form of Christian faith on the planet right now), there is little exhortation to quake. Somehow this lodged in the morning’s meditation. What does the psalmist know that I don’t that allows him to urge others to quake, as if they ought to? Can, on command? As if quaking is something one does, something that is part and parcel of knowing God.
Lectio seems to invite us to accept the experience of the psalmist and to see the world through the eyes of the psalmist. The meditative part is to suspend disbelief or criticism of the psalmist long enough to simply see the world through his eyes for a time. Like the movie Cloverfield, which I saw last night with Don and Eric. A standard horror movie, but seen entirely through one hand-held camera. So that everything is mediated through a single pair of eyes. And you’ve no choice but to see the world as it’s seen by the guy holding the camera. The whole film long.
Quake says the psalmist. I think I have in the past–trembled, sobbed, found myself on the edge of full control of myself and then one step beyond, in the presence of something or someone beyond myself. But not something one can do on command. Seen my wife quake in labor during what they call transition: every time, I think, she went through this period of shaking like a leaf, just before the final exit was achieved.
I wonder how often people quake and how and what’s it like and what’s going on in the body that causes quaking? What about the Quakers and their quaking? What brought it on? How did they see it? What did they see that caused them to quake?
Did it help them not to offend?
Fear, what’s necessary or good or essential about it in the apprehension of the divine? Something.
So this morning, it wasn’t so much the questions, as a time of openness to the psalmist’s view of the world–a willingness to see the world through is hand held camera; simply accepting that view for a time, trying it on for size.
