Have you seen the news reports about the bear in Ely that researchers are observing on video cam? Headlines in papers as far away as England (and probably beyond) have stated, “Hibernating bear gets video cam.” The bear, holed up in her den, ended up with a video cam installed by researchers so that they and the general public could see the birth of cubs and how the hibernating bear manages to mother them. Thewebsite set up by researchers has drawn so many people that it had to be expanded because of popularity, and a Facebook page featuring the bear was joined by more than 20,000 people.
“Did she move her head? Did she open an eye? Did she shift around? Is that a cub?” The camera lets the eyes of the world take in some of the wonder of creation in the activity, or lack of activity, of a bear. Long before now people were drawn to the images of a bear in a den, it’s just that now it is possible to actually observe what is going on there. People have liked the idea of the hibernating time, and of the den in which to recede from the strenuousness of life.
Maybe that is one reason that the images of Psalm 32 are so lovely to us. The writer of the Psalm is speaking to God, and saying:
You are a hiding place for me;
you preserve me,
you surround me.
Only one bear that we generally know of has a video cam in the den. And that video camera will stop showing us what is happening in the life of the bear when the hibernation time is over. And, even if it followed the bear around, it would show only what is happening on the outside.
But for us humans, while what we are physically doing is important, and of some interest, it is the inside of us that is most important. That is where fear, loneliness, joy, excitement, even hunger, thirst, and bonding to other people show up. Inside of us, in our mind and personality and soul that we often call heart, that is where the really important stuff of life is happening.
And it is the inside of us, more than the outside, which seeks the den that God provides and draws us to. Sure, we need the physical den just as a bear does (we call it home, roof, clothing). But the inside of us, that soul, personality, mind, emotion part of us needs the den of God in which we can safely be held and cared for.
We tend to think that that hiding place within God is a place we have as an option, a place we can retreat to when either the going gets tough or when the joys of life call us to be thankful. But, actually, we are there, in the den of God, at all times. You are there. Right now, you are in the hiding place where God is already. God surrounds us, even when we haven’t set our mind to it; maybe especially when we don’t set our mind to it.
This whole life we live is one lived within God’s hiding and holding. Going back to Psalm 32, we see that being in the den that God has created for us doesn’t just mean existing; it isn’t hibernating away from the world or from life. It is where, when we let ourselves do more than simply exist in it, we receive God’s interacting care and love. Psalm 32 continues, with God’s voice being heard.
I will instruct you
and teach you;
I will counsel you
with my eye upon you…
Be glad in the Lord
and rejoice,
shout for joy.
Remember, you are the Lord’s,
and where you are,
you are in God’s place.
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