An image in the psalm for today, Psalm 131, sparked my interest. The whole psalm is only three verses; here it is:
A song of ascents. Of David.
LORD, my heart is not proud; nor are my eyes haughty. I do not busy myself with great matters, with things too sublime for me.
Rather, I have stilled my soul, hushed it like a weaned child. Like a weaned child on its mother’s lap, so is my soul within me.
Israel, hope in the LORD, now and forever.
That’s it. So, what do you think about the "weaned child?" Very interesting! Why has the psalmist stilled his soul like a weaned child on its mother’s lap and not, say, like a nursing child on its mother’s lap? While the mother’s lap is a place of comfort and happiness for any child, certainly a nursing child would be receiving even more comfort from its mother than a weaned child.
Well, let’s see. When you hear "weaned child" you should be thinking of a largish toddler or a smallish child, perhaps a three-year-old or a four-year-old. My experience with three- and four-year-olds is that they can be VERY squirmy, more than many younger children. But at the same time they are also (being older) beginning to be able to respond a little more to their parents’ requests.
Nursing children are indeed very easy to hush and to still; a child who is nursing is usually a quiet, calm child. (Not always. They can get into some amazing contortions when they have a mind to. But often, nursing a child calms him immediately, and sometimes puts him right to sleep. Right now, for instance, as I sat here blogging, I was nursing my youngest, and it took about 5 minutes for him to fall mouth-wide-open unconscious.)
I’m thinking that the psalmist didn’t mean for us to imagine that his soul is idyllically still, that it is as easy to still his soul as it is for a nursing mother to offer her breast to still her nursling. I’m thinking he meant us to imagine the mother’s effort to hush and still her weaned child. It’s second nature to pop a nipple into a crying child’s mouth. It can be a little tougher to help an older, weaned child to calm down.
And a child who’s actually in the act of suckling is not likely to get upset again, at least not while at the breast. But sometimes, stilling and hushing a weaned child is a sort of dance: just when you get him to settle down and his breathing begins to be regular, suddenly the snuffling starts again and you’ve got to rock him even harder, hug even tighter.
So that’s one possibility. Perhaps that soul, only recently "proud" and "haughty" and "busy," took some effort to settle down, to hush and to still, like a weaned child on its mother’s lap. Perhaps the psalmist knows that the soul won’t stay still for long; tantrums will, eventually, return, and he will have to settle it down again, by an act of will.
There is another possibility in that word "weaned." It could be meant to connote satisfaction or fulfillment — that the weaned child has drunk his fill from his mother’s breast. He has been filled up for life.
But the first possibility seems to work better with the psalmist’s intent, which is to say — I think — that he has managed to quell (for now) worldly desires, pride, and the like, and found (for now) inner peace in the Lord. What do you think?
(Something else interesting: The nursing mother appears in the second reading for today, 1 Thessalonians 2:7-9,13. It goes like this:
[W]e were gentle among you, as a nursing mother cares for her children.
With such affection for you, we were determined to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our very selves as well, so dearly beloved had you become to us.
Compare and contrast. Our very selves as well.)
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