When I was 11-12 our primary school built an outdoor amphitheater. Our wonderful teacher died of cancer that year and the amphitheater was named for him when completed. I believe he read the Douglas Bader story (double leg amputee, pilot, prisoner of war and escapee) aloud to every year 7 class he had and I remember him leaning on the blackboard ledge, worn cover curled behind the page currently being read and reading it for what we didn’t know would be his last time – with as much pleasure as he must have had the first time he read it. Full of wit and adventure and somehow; laughter.
One of Mr Devitt’s well known ‘punishments’ was to give those who needed detention- a ‘useful’ form of it. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sight to see him reclining on the lawn between our classroom and the basketball court, scissors in hand with identically equipped boys (of course) ‘mowing’ the lawn there during a lunch or recess while chatting and laughing. A mastermind of relationship and ingenuity.
It was only this morning that I realised that the unusual phys Ed lessons we had that year were probably his brainchild. The amphitheater was I think enclosed by layers of railway sleepers and the yellow sand within needed to settle and compact before the concrete was laid.
At least the two year 7 classes that year found ourselves having folk or square dancing lessons – barefoot- on the continuously hosed/wet yellow sand-pad a couple of times a week. 30 sets of feet stomping and pounding that sand into place. Why hire a machine when there’s a ‘funner’ cheaper way to achieve the needed outcome!
Selah.
Typically selah is used in the Psalms and is understood to mean ‘a pause’. “Pause and think about that” says one translation. “A musical suspension” says another.
The Strong’s concordance meaning includes the words:
“To hang” (perhaps like a painting on a wall to study and appreciate?)
“Weigh” (perhaps like hanging weights on a balancing scale)
“To tread down underfoot” (perhaps like 30 dancing children on a wet sand pad for months)
“Value” – all the above and more (arrange, array, esteem).
Sometimes life interrupts and suspends the regular broadcast with an unexpected (unwelcome?) SELAH. Normal things somehow rocket along at their pre-existing rate outside of the full-stop events that become a slow-mo bubble of insulated pause.
Life is different. Sound is different. Pace is different. Time is bizarre. Things magnify and diminish immediately in importance.
Slow mo.
Bubbled.
Selah.
Pause and meditate.
Suspend the note… extend the chord…
Value. Weigh. Measure. Esteem.
See.
Set aside. Leave aside.
Selah.
The pace will return. It always does.
Sit in the pause and
Hear.
SELAH