Selah

I love words that roll deliciously around in my mouth--that I can almost taste--before they roll off my tongue, slipping breathlessly into the air, or exploding onto the sound waves. To qualify as a favorite word, it must also have exquisite meaning (that's a good one--exquisite). My oldest and still most favorite is onomatopoeia. A newer one is pentimento; I wrote a post about that one when I learned it. A brand new word, given to me by a friend this week, is paraprosdokian: a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to re-frame or re-interpret the first part. "Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?" Fun.

Another somewhat recent favorite is selah; a word I learned at church a few years ago. Selah is a word from the Hebrew Bible meaning (loosely) to pause in the reading of the text, or the singing of the Psalms. It tells us to pause and think about what we have just heard. A rest in lines of musical text is a selah. Julia Cameron in Walking in this World says: “'Rest' is a musical term for a pause between flurries of notes. Without that tiny pause, the torrent of notes can be overwhelming. Without a rest in our lives, the torrent of our lives can be the same." Selah.

Snow is a selah, covering all the nastiness in the world with a cloak of silent beauty and goodness; forcing us to take a rest and listen to the quiet; to let loose of the torrent of our lives. (We haven't had that this year, sadly.) Rain is a selah in this part of the world. I have often said that the constant sun and blue sky pushes me into more and more activity and exhaustion. Rain gives me permission to stop and take a breath. Selah.

I find a selah at the cemetery when the sun is rising; and in the five sun salutations I do each morning in my upstairs window looking into the Rose of Sharon tree, which today has tiny green nubs of bud that I don't notice when I hurry under it to the car to go to work. When I was a student at the University of Washington I sought out times of selah, though I didn't know the word for it then. One place I found it was in the dorm basement in the "practice rooms" where I went to play the piano for myself. Others played for the world to hear on the grand piano in the lounge. Not me. (I know you are not surprised.) Another was in the study carrels on the top floor of the cathedral-like Suzzallo Library, tucked into the dormers on the edges of the dusty stacks where no one ever went. Selah.

Like snow, fog is a visual selah. We have had fog this week. It hangs around the cemetery stones, and diffuses the sun's rays. Fog softens the world as sky comes down to meet earth and we have to look harder and listen harder to find our way as the outlines that define our markers are blurred. Even the moon loses its definition as it struggles to be seen, or maybe wishes to hide within its own selah, as I did in the practice room and the library. Selah.

I think of selah this week on Leap Day. The day is exhausting and crazy--and I hear that from several people; it isn't just me. And then it comes to me: Leap Day should be a selah--a pause, a day to stop, look, and listen. Instead we make this gift of an extra day every four years just another day to get work done, as we did the day before and the day after. Such a missed opportunity. Our souls need rest, but our egos resist. "Get it done. Produce more. Don't take a break. Go. Go. Go." Selah.

If Advent is adventure, a looking forward with anticipation and excitement for the day the One Who is More will do a new thing in the world, Lent is selah. Lent is a season that begs us to pause; to look closely; to listen. As I have said in this blog throughout past Lents, it is my favorite time both in the garden and in my living. It is a quiet time for me. And because of the quiet I hear the whisperings of my heart. God may do a new thing during Advent, but Lent is when I start noticing it. Selah.

It is not that nothing is happening during Lent--a great deal is happening. It is just subtle, sneaking in on little cat paws. Silently and with great strength pushing this year's giant hosta up through the hard ground in the garden. (It's not pretty, but its time will come.) The Lenten selah is producing buds on the dead-but-not-dead hydrangea canes. The purple anemone is up; and the pansies, happy but not flamboyant like the summer zinnias, continue to bring color to the drab earth, as they have all winter. I find the first azalea buds early in the week, and yesterday some have opened. I am not a fan of azaleas, especially eleven months out of the year; but I do love the magenta ones under my dogwood tree. I hope they don't expire before the dogwood blooms this year. The newly-planted false sea foam has a first opening bloom; the Japanese painted fern and the Jacob's Ladder continue their quiet expansion into the world. Yesterday I also discover the Green and Gold ground cover I planted last year has its first blooms and the Carolina jasmine is turning the porch rail yellow. Selah.

The Lenten garden is mostly close to the ground. Perhaps so the ground can protect it against any last gasp winter cold, like we will have this week. Not until summer will the garden reach skyward and be visible to passers-by. It reminds me of another close-to-the-ground selah: shavasana (another word that I love). The last yoga position, taken lying on the mat close to the ground. The time of the practice when we lie still, listening to and slowing our breathing, and let all that the practice has been sink into our bones. The time when we thank God above for all that our bodies have been able to do, and the earth below for holding us up. Selah.

So much of the new growth in the Lenten garden is visible only to one who pauses, kneels, brushes away the dead leaves, and examines closely what is hiding beneath. The garden is a journey, ever-changing. I have learned that if I only see the razzle-dazzle of the spring and summer bloom, I have missed the journey. If I don't engage in the Lenten selah, I have gone through the cycles of my living without breathing. I am a traveler in this life. If I miss the journey, I have missed everything there is. Selah.