Psalm 93          A calm authority

That with divine wisdom we may sufficiently contains the energies we have unleashed; and that those with inner chaos and fury may find peace.

In the silence of the night your word was spoken,

a calm creative word in the heavens.

It was but a whisper of your voice,

the faint rustling of your robes of glory.

Light of the universe, yet did you hide yourself,

so that your beams might not dazzle and shrivel us.

To the chaos that storms, without and within,

speak with assurance, Peace, be still.

Pause

In the quiet ways you hold the world together,

chaos contained by your compassionate power:

When the seas hurl their pounding waves,

when the hurricane howls across the ocean,

when the tornado rips through the farmland,

when the rivers rage through city streets,

you set a limit to their power;

that they may not overwhelm us for ever.

To the chaos that storms, without and within,

speak with assurance, Peace, be still.

Pause

The surges of chaos pound through our heads,

a murderous fury rises within us;

wrenched apart by the sobbing of grief,

we are lost and bewildered, tossed to and fro.

Pause

A relentless pain throbs through our bones,

we scream in the night at the faces of terror:

Yet even as we plunge in the fearful abyss,

the face of the crucified is there in the void.

To the chaos that storms, without and within,

speak with assurance, Peace, be still.

Pause

For where do we best see your power?

Nowhere else but a man who is stricken,

deserted  and betrayed by his friends,

killed by his people, an outcast, unclean.

Pause

The chaos they dared not face in themselves

they hurled with abuse and with nails.

They hid from their pain in the thicket of laws

and refused to allow their wounds to be healed.

they defended themselves in self-righteous armour,

and refused the calm word of forgiveness and love.

To the chaos that storms, without and within,

speak with assurance, Peace, be still.

Pause

The material world looked so solid around us,

we never even dreamed of the chaos in matter.

As the cloud mushroomed high in the desert,

we were stunned by the force we’d unleashed.

The power of apocalypse is now in our hands:

is the calm word of God lost for ever?

Silence

Creator God, woven in the very fabric of the universe, for ever committed to bringing harmony out of chaos, assure us of your presence in the midst of our perplexities and fears, that you will endure with us and speak the calm word of a deeper and more lasting peace.

in Out of the Silence … Into the Silence by Jim Cotter. Cairns Publications, Harlech, 2006. pp. 277-279. Used with permission.