Reacting and Responding

Psalm 4

There’s a poem by Wendell Berry that I think of often and have shared from the pulpit on a number of occasions – it’s one Rachelle shared with me a number of years ago.

It’s called The Peace of Wild Things.

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The poet’s response to despair is to look to the care that God shows in sustaining creation.  The grace of wood drakes resting and great herons feeding. 

The simplicity of the economy of the natural world.

The poem always reminds me of Jesus’s words about lilies and sparrows.

Jesus says in conclusion: your heavenly Father knows what you need: so do not worry.

This modern poem came to mind as I was pondering the words of the ancient poem we read this week:

When you are disturbed, do not sin;
    ponder it on your beds, and be silent. Selah
Offer right sacrifices,
    and put your trust in the Lord.

This phrase: “When you are disturbed”

Really grabbed my attention.

The word used here in the Psalm doesn’t mean exactly

what we mean by the word disturbed.

In other translations we see “tremble,” “quake,” “be angry,” “stand in awe”

One of the things that English readers of the Bible have always struggled with is how hard it can be to pin down one meaning for a given word in the Hebrew.

And there’s reason to believe that this is intentional on the part of the writers themselves.

It shows an abundance of meaning and possibilities that words have.

This verse gets used later by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians when he writes:

“Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph 4:26)

This is because Paul used the Greek translation of the Hebrew that was in use during his writing and that translation had chosen to hear this verse not as:

 When you are disturbed, do not sin;

But as:

Be angry, but do not sin.

The word here translated disturbed, there translated angry or “stand in awe” or “quake” or “tremble”

Means all of these things. 

As I was reading and thinking about the word and how it is translated in all those ways – I wanted to find a way to translate it in my own words.

And as I’ve thought about it and tried to imagine what the poet is saying here –

I’ve come up with my own word that shows what I think might be going on.

I read it as “When you are shaken up, do not sin;”

And it got me to thinking about the things that shake me up – the things that shake us up.

The things that make our blood run faster, that make our adrenaline pumps run.

What are the things that shake us up?

This Psalm is an evening prayer. 

Maybe even a midnight prayer for those times when we are up in the middle of the night like Wendell Berry with despair for the world –

or perhaps some more local concern,

a conversation or argument that left a sour taste in your heart. 

Or a feeling of having to do something or not having done something.  It’s strange thing, but there seem to be endless possible ways to get shaken-up.

And what do we do when we are shaken up –

When we’re shaken up in the middle of a conversation we might get angry and say something hurtful

When we’re shaken up and we’re by ourselves we might get overrun with what Wendell Berry calls “forethought / of grief”

When we’re shaken up we tend to try to shake off what has shaken us. 

And we do this impulsively at times.

And so comes out a word we didn’t intend, a hasty action that makes things worse.

We want to get back to the unshaken place and yet our response just shakes things up all the more.

When I was in my first internship up at Dartmouth-Hitchcock I learned a distinction that has stuck with me.

When we would be visiting people in the hospital room we never knew what to expect.

We never knew what kinds of things would “shake us up.”

And so our supervisor Frank taught us the difference between “reacting” and “responding”

Reacting is that in the moment knee-jerk word or action in the cloud of emotions.

Responding waits a moment.  Notices the reaction before it gets out of the mouth or through the hands and considers why the person might have done or said that and why I might have wanted to say or do that – and in that moment makes a decision to say or do something with awareness and intention.

Reacting is in the moment, not through-through, emotionally charged and quick.

Responding is cooler, intentional and deliberate and necessarily slower.

We were good at reacting – responding took more work and required a good deal of thoughtful intention and patience.

I think this Psalm gives a good picture of what it means to respond rather than react

to being shaken up.

When you are disturbed, do not sin;
    ponder it on your beds, and be silent. Selah
Offer right sacrifices,
    and put your trust in the Lord.

A proverb that we find in the New Testament in the letter of James is another example of responding versus reacting:

“You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness.”

Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.

How many people brag about being a quick listener? And slow reactor?

Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.

In other words.  Patience – responding rather than reacting.

It’s helpful for me to remember that regardless of what got me shaken up – all of those things that were out of my control – I have the ability to respond well.

That’s something that is in my power to do.

And a necessary part of responding rather than reacting is cultivating a rested heart.

It’s like when you shake a jar of pond water and it gets cloudy. 

It’s only when the jar has been still over time does it return to a settled and clear state.

The Psalmist encourages all who are listening

Rest your heart in God.

Trust in God’s care. 

The Psalmist who we’re lead to understand has been in a shaky situation –

counsels others to not let disturbance, the shake-up lead them to sin.

But rather – the Psalmist bids them “Ponder it on your beds, and be silent.” “put your trust in the Lord.” 

And I love what the King James version of this Psalm says: “commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.”

Stillness. Communing with your own heart, trusting in God – remembering that God our Creator is the one place of stillness and strength in the midst of shakiness. 

The Psalmist says – you who are shaken up. 

Rest in God, be still. 

Commune with your own heart upon your bed.

And the Psalmist finds peace from this. 

Remembering God’s abundant care,

The shakiness begins to settle, and in the clearness gratitude returns.

“You have put gladness in my heart
    more than when their grain and wine abound.

I will both lie down and sleep in peace;
    for you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety.”

And in the presence of God we find peace and assurance of God’s care.

Blessed Assurance.  All our days.

It made me think of the prayer of Teresa de Avila who as a reformer in the 16^th century no doubt knew well what it meant to feel shaken up:

“Let nothing disturb you,

Let nothing frighten you,

All things are passing away:

God never changes.

Patience obtains all things

Whoever has God lacks nothing;

God alone suffices.”

Amen.