The New Revised Standard Version reads:
O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high.I do not occupy myself with thingstoo great and too marvelous for me.But I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mothermy soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the Lordfrom this time on and forevermore.
There are beautiful images here. I feel subsumed in the image of "like a weaned child with its mother". When I hold my children in my lap, they are cradled against the breast that once fed them. They hear a heart beat that they knew in the womb, heard in the their first weeks, that beat near their ear as they fed, and that lulled them to sleep again and again.
Though my youngest has been weaned for over a year, she still comes to my lap for stillness, for consolation, for a little rebirth. Leaning against my breast again is coming back to the fount that gave order and life to each of them for so long. It is the place to regroup, recharge, re-covenant with the love that gives them the strength to go out again, try new things, fail or succeed.
Even for adopted or bottle-fed children, the metaphor holds for the lap as the place of comfort.
It holds for the heartbeat within a familiar chest as a re-orienting rhythm.
What an image for us to consider in our relationship with our Creator. That we have a place of peace to snuggle into, to be cradled, to be re-acquainted with our most primordial selves.
When we are at peace in closeness with what Is, Was, and Ever Shall Be, we are like a beloved child, held and comforted, for whom all is right with the world.
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