Communication

A Calmed and Quieted Soul

by Terry Barlow
10/17/17
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“But I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother…” (Psalm 131, v.2)

We know that a weaned child is no longer nursing at its mother’s breast. There is a beauty and intimacy about a child nursing at its mother’s breast. At first glance it may seem that that child is more intimate with its mother than the one at the side of its mother. Certainly the child at its mother’s breast is physically closer to its mother than one at the mother’s side, because no one could be physically closer to their mother than nursing at its breast, unless that one were actually in the womb of the mother. But a child sucking at its mother’s breast cannot simultaneously converse with the mother, whereas a child at its mother’s side can converse with its mother. That conversing child can provide companionship and fellowship with the parent on a wholly different and higher level than can a nursing child. While the nursing child longs for its mother’s milk for its own nourishment, a mother or parent also yearns for companionship and fellowship in such a way and on such a level that even its weaned child can provide it. Because the weaned child has quieted or denied other impulses within itself as not being necessary at that time, it has prepared itself to interact with its parent on a higher level than it did before.
This isn’t to say there are not certain real limitations on the new level of communication with the parent. Notice the first verse of that same psalm: “O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things to great and marvelous for me.” In other words there are no pretensions on the part of that child about being on the same level with as broad an understanding of the world as the adult parent. While the communication with the parent does not extend as far as it would between the parent with another adult like the father for example, the restrictions are not such that they would prevent growth and great enrichment in the development of that relationship with the child. And that parent-child relationship will continue to carry the expectation and excitement developmentally as more and more possibilities and horizons open with increasing complexity.  The more complex the relationship becomes the more potential for beauty that the relationship will possess.  This is also some of how it is intended to work with respect to our own personal relationships with our God and Savior by the Holy Spirit.