O Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time on and forevermore.

Psalm 131, NRSV. A Song of Ascents. Of David? [Some scholars believe this psalm was written by a woman, regardless of its being attributed to David. I don’t think it matters much, but the imagery is definitely feminine – God as mother, human soul as child.]

I hadn’t really given much thought to the image of the soul as a weaned child, one already moving toward adulthood and able to survive without a mother’s milk. It isn’t hunger for food that moves this child to seek its mother; it’s the desire to return to the source of life, and the recognition that life begins and is sustained by the loving presence of another. None of us are self-created. That simple truth can be accepted and celebrated, or it can be denied as a weakness. If denied, the truth of our very existence is lost, and we will seek in vain to replace it with all manner of complex knowledge and difficult tasks – all of which will have no foundation or ability to ground us in what is true and real.

There’s no shame in being still in the presence of the one who brought us into life. It’s the one place in the universe that offers a glimpse of who we are, and how very much we are loved. This and no other is the starting place of wisdom.