Verse of the Day for March 31

A month about stillness ends on a bed, which is where most people discover whether they have any.

Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.

Commune with your own heart is an instruction to have the conversation deliberately, rather than letting it happen to you at two in the morning.

Most night thinking is not communing. It is being interrogated by your own mind without a chairman, on subjects you did not choose, in an order that guarantees no conclusion.

The psalm proposes something else: take the conversation on purpose, before God, in awe, and then stop it.

And the psalm ends four verses later with sleep. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.

Only is doing the same work it did in Psalm 62. The safety has one source, and knowing that is what finally makes the lying down possible.

A month of stillness comes down to whether you can put the day down at night.

Commune, then be still. The psalm puts a full stop where your mind wants a comma.