God Was Hovering
Do you remember the last time you said something you wished you hadn’t? Maybe it hurt someone’s feelings, or the conversation came to a screeching halt. We have all been there. It is a human challenge to discern what needs to be said and what words will be life-giving. How do we learn to pause, deeply listen, and come to know what exists in a space before we speak or move into it?
This week, in the First Year Hybrid program, two opportunities arose to shed some light on this question. One was during Bible Study class with Patrick Kennedy, and the other was the Steiner School of Speech Arts (SSSA) Workout Week in Spring Valley, NY.
In our Bible study class with Patrick Kennedy seminary students “mapped” Genesis 1, by looking at the structure and framework of the words and listening to what is there. When we map literature, a deeper meaning emerges through the form.
In the beginning, before Day 1 of creation, there IS something there, not just an empty stage. God had already created the heavens and earth. “The earth was without form and a void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” - Gen 1:2
We spent time with God’s activity of “hovering.” It is a Hebrew verb, with a feminine gender. This verb appears only one other time in Deuteronomy, to describe the activity of an eagle tending to and flapping over her nestlings. To deepen our contemplation Patrick introduced a similar verb, “brooding”; a loving, dedicated, focused activity prior to birthing. When we hover or brood there is a holding back and a deep observing quality to our activity.
Before the first words, “Let there be light”, God is holding back and tending to the earth. What is this seed that God will plant? What is the Word that God will speak? “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
Within a few days, these deep contemplations were put to the test. I just arrived home after dropping off my 16-year-old daughter and her friend at Newark Penn Train Station. They were headed to Washington DC to see friends for the weekend and assured me they could find their train platform and take care of themselves. They had non-refundable, expensive tickets (you know where this is headed). Upon arriving home from the train station, I received a call, “Mom, we missed our train.” I paused, hovering. I spent a moment perceiving what was in me and tending to what was happening on the other end of the phone. This was a fledging moment of independence and self-reliance in my teenager’s life. My response could have gone in many directions. But a life-giving word welled out of me, “What is your plan?” I listened to the plan, and things worked out. Without a doubt, the deep contemplation of God’s activity was at work.
The same day our Bible Class contemplated God’s activity in Genesis, I started another activity; Greek Gymnastics as a warm-up to Speech Workout Week.
Our Greek Gymnastics Instructor, Carley Horan, instructed us in discus throwing. We each held a flat, smooth disc in our palm and came to know it. The shape was similar to perfectly round communion bread. We were instructed to take our disc in hand, stand still, and hover. To pause, slowly breathe, and take in the great expanse before us. Then, transform it and send the disc into space as an offering of our own making. The hovering is by far the hardest part. Minding the inner landscape while tending to the outer shifted my point of view. I felt connected to a creative process, something flowing in the world and me. A lemniscate that connects us to one another, a life-giving force that unites us all.
I can’t say that my experience with hovering has been comfortable. Whether it’s discus throwing or fielding phone calls from Newark Penn station, taking time to pause and tend to inner and outer life takes an enormous effort. Sometimes, the inner landscape is a dark, lonely place. But I am drawn to keep exploring this broody-hovering-flapping wings space that precedes a creative activity, the sacred creative act of speaking a Word.
I am the song that sings the bird
I am the leaf that grows the land
I am the tide that moves the moon
I am the stream that halts the sand
I am the cloud that drives the storm
I am the earth that lights the sun
I am the fire that strikes the stone
I am the clay that shapes the hand
I am the word that speaks the man-Charles Causley, “I am the Song”
Our Author: Wendy Matus is a Knowing Christ Student who practices Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine and lives in Spring Valley, NY where she lives with her daughter, along with their dog, cat and chickens.