Reflections on fear and courage and other elements: themes from Matthew 14
There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in. ― Desmond Tutu
SONGS about FEAR & COURAGE:
- Fear Is a Liar by Zach Williams (Christian): https://youtu.be/1srs1YoTVzs?si=RYhTcba4zdSguAj3
- The Breakup Song by Franccesca Battistelli (pop): https://youtu.be/H0wpP5o7xpI?si=EhnM4_2P9ho9sB0h
- Scared to Live by The Weeknd (pop): https://youtu.be/MzsU_sn2aIE?si=VRWUODJ2wu-tl6bU
- Scared by Jeremy Zucker (pop): https://youtu.be/iyEUvUcMHgE?si=mHMmHaRY1LX168Y5
- Fear Country by T. Bone Burnett (country): https://youtu.be/z5XdXQYNRKg?si=fCcZSBl_pRYNHW9_
- Fear & Loathing by Marina and the Diamonds (pop): https://youtu.be/9txg0XicoJ0?si=vxzOgpf8EJ28Rlja
- I Will Fear No More by The Afters (Christian): https://youtu.be/wMmmbJlWhtk?si=joLFyeT1ZPFr1egv
- Fear by Sade (blues/pop): https://youtu.be/0iD9Hh8yOu8?si=4iznGmBGu9S0tqxD
- Fear of Being Alone by Reba McEntire (country): https://youtu.be/vrL_epBY87o?si=hjg3ZTNfIySTz1q6
- Scared of Beaytiful by Brandy (pop): https://youtu.be/wCvdxc8a00k?si=imFAJE5Tix2mgTKF
- F.E,A.R. by Kendrick Lamar (rChristian ap – explicit lyrics): https://youtu.be/jdbQYDkNjfk?si=w4H1qWkB-iJq0T6g
- The Fear by Ben Howard (folk/country): https://youtu.be/dnxCxHLAqn8?si=J2BYosXfqtNdMrqD
- Fear by X Ambassadors ft. Imagine Dragons (rock/pop): https://youtu.be/0uFy8HV0vFQ?si=tJJtjX40b1U-RDkb
- Afraid by Tenth Aventue North (Christian): https://youtu.be/WohcTuNRBFE?si=__Tln8vX02Fm8QC6
- Afraid by Aaron Lewis (country): https://youtu.be/1NbivChoWoE?si=uD82nbG5-kyeuI6J
- Fear Not by Chris Tomlin (Christian): https://youtu.be/QrhXln-zHso?si=10kGOdnNmjjOojPx
- Fear by Lilly Allen (po)p: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD-c6cx98ls
- Guts Over Fear by Eminem (rap – explicit language): https://youtu.be/0AqnCSdkjQ0?si=tzlcxrWw0EQJ2A79
- Doubt by 21 Pilots (pop/rap): https://youtu.be/MEiVnNNpJLA?si=UdpGbsyWQhgjrpfj
- My Worst Fear by Rascal Faltts (country): https://youtu.be/ULlPCoSV0ZA?si=MW4XlPHD7e8iELrE
- Fearless by Jasmine Murray (Christian pop): https://youtu.be/Yqtf71mILwY?si=RvKFZvUAxhghP4wf
- The Fear by The Shins (folk rock): https://youtu.be/ptgCm2LaOLA?si=GfzUIj_XuNJ4xIT0
- Untethered Angel by Dream Theater (rock): https://youtu.be/gylxuO6dKOw?si=KcATSWlZMRvBzzB9
- In Fear and Faith by Circa Survive (rock): https://youtu.be/F2mpzfOUhyY?si=zPKBI7KLXVgxP4FK
- There Goes the Fear by Doves (pop): https://youtu.be/SneuvKIkM3A?si=Gvf_0u0SK2k11MA8
- Fear the Future by St Vincent (rock): https://youtu.be/-v7rkdDldF4?si=bCRBNpUTwbI0pAG-
- Fear of Dying by Poppy (pop): https://youtu.be/5PQoSzZkYVI?si=YrXBnipiCNiyutXe
- Fear of Sleep by The Strokes (rock -mexplicit content): https://youtu.be/xMpVCjW8F8M?si=AQjGvFfDy-Gx7b-e
- Panic Room by Au/Ra (pop? indie?): https://youtu.be/Ro51SuLyh8A?si=UGOlspMUxNmjvLsI
- Fear of the Dark by Iron Maiden (heavy metal): https://youtu.be/epYKVcHrVr0?si=CrwIHLPVAfyy2UbL
MINDFUL WALKING
This story is told of the sage Ramakrishna. Once a man came to Ramakrishna, sitting on the banks of the Ganges. “Master,” he called to Ramakrishna, “Look! After fourteen years of dedicated practice I have finally achieved my life’s goal. I can walk now on water.”
“Fie on it,” Ramakrishna replied. “You have achieved what is worth only a penny, for what you have spent a lifetime acquiring, ordinary people do by paying the ferry boatman a penny.” — David Anderson, findingyoursoul.com
When the 12 Thai boys who were trapped in a cave and were rescued one by one were first discovered by British divers earlier this month, they were reportedly meditating. “Look at how calm they were sitting there waiting. No one was crying or anything. It was astonishing,” the mother of one of the boys told the AP, referring to a widely shared video of the moment the boys were found. Turns out that their coach, Ekapol Chanthawong, who led them on a hike into the cave when it flooded on June 23, trained in meditation as a Buddhist monk for a decade before becoming a soccer coach. According to multiple news sources, he taught the boys, ages 11 to 16, to meditate in the cave to keep them calm and preserve their energy through their two-week ordeal. — vox.com
Suppose two astronauts go to the moon. When they arrive, they have an accident and find out that they have only enough oxygen for two days. There is no hope of someone coming from Earth in time to rescue them. They have only two days to live. If you asked them at that moment, “What is your deepest wish?” they would answer, “To be back home walking on the beautiful planet Earth.” That would be enough for them; they would not want anything else. They would not want to be the head of a large corporation, a big celebrity or president of the United States. They would not want anything except to be back on Earth – to be walking on Earth, enjoying every step, listening to the sounds of nature and holding the hand of their beloved while contemplating the moon.
We should live every day like people who have just been rescued from the moon. We are on Earth now, and we need to enjoy walking on this precious beautiful planet. The Zen master Lin Chi said, “The miracle is not to walk on water but to walk on the Earth.” I cherish that teaching. I enjoy just walking, even in busy places like airports and railway stations. In walking like that, with each step caressing our Mother Earth, we can inspire other people to do the same. We can enjoy every minute of our lives. ― Thich Nhat Hanh
ON RESCUE
There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in. ― Desmond Tutu
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, Because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly … — Theodore Roosevelt
The game wardens have been walking in the rain all day, walking through the woods in the freezing rain trying to find your sister. They would have walked all day tomorrow, walked in the cold rain the rest of the week, searching for Betsy, so they could bring her home to you. And if there is one thing I am sure of—one thing I am very, very sure of, Dan—it is that God is not less kind, less committed, or less merciful than a Maine game warden. — Kate Braestrup
One person of integrity can make a difference. ― Elie Wiesel
Love is the only way to rescue humanity from all ills. — Leo Tolstoy
It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature–a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price. ― Robert A. Heinlein
God uses rescued people to rescue people. — Christine Caine
Rescue the drowning and tie your shoestrings. — Henry David Thoreau
The greatest threat that I need to be rescued from is myself. Everything comes a lot easier after that. ― Craig D. Lounsbrough
People rescue each other. They build shelters and community kitchens and ways to deal with lost children and eventually rebuild one way or another. — Rebecca Solnit
God is no White Knight who charges into the world to pluck us like distressed damsels from the jaws of dragons, or diseases. God chooses to become present to and through us. It is up to us to rescue one another. — Nancy Mairs
Even grief recedes with time and grace. But our resolve must not pass. Each of us will remember what happened that day, and to whom it happened. We’ll remember the moment the news came — where we were and what we were doing. Some will remember an image of a fire, or a story of rescue. Some will carry memories of a face and a voice gone forever. — George W. Bush
People rescue each other. They build shelters and community kitchens and ways to deal with lost children and eventually rebuild one way or another. Rebecca Solnit
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/rescue
People rescue each other. They build shelters and community kitchens and ways to deal with lost children and eventually rebuild one way or another. Rebecca Solnit
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/rescu
When we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again, have given up all hope–and been suddenly snatched from danger, and placed in safety; and when these things have been repeated to us and in us a thousand times over, we begin to learn to trust simply to the word and power of God, beyond and against appearances … — John Newton
I, God, am in your midst. Whoever knows me can never fall. Not in the heights, nor in the depths, nor in the breadths. For I am love, which the vast expanses of evil can never still. – Hildegard of Bingen
For as soon as we have used an opportunity and have actualized a potential meaning, we have done so once and for all. We have rescued it into the past/…/, wherein nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured. ― Viktor E. Frankl
ALONE
Alone — Maya Angelou
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
ON WATER
In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence. ― Kahlil Gibran
As it happens my own reverence for water has always taken the form of this constant meditation upon where the water is, of an obsessive interest not in the politics of water but in the waterworks themselves, in the movement of water through aqueducts and siphons and pumps and forebays and afterbays and weirs and drains, in plumbing on the grand scale. — Joan Didion
The water you kids were playing in, he said, had probably been to Africa and the North Pole. Genghis Khan or Saint Peter or even Jesus may have drunk it. Cleopatra might have bathed in it. Crazy Horse might have watered his pony with it. Sometimes water was liquid. Sometimes it was rock hard- ice. Sometimes it was soft- snow. Sometimes it was visible but weightless- clouds. And sometimes it was completely invisible- vapor- floating up into the the sky like the soals of dead people. There was nothing like water in the world, Jim said. It made the desert bloom but also turned rich bottomland into swamp. Without it we’d die, but it could also kill us, and that was why we loved it, even craved it, but also feared it. Never take water forgranted, Jim said. Always cherish it. Always beware of it. ― Jeannette Walls, Half Broke Horses
Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does. ― Margaret Atwood
The ocean makes me feel really small and it makes me put my whole life into perspective… it humbles you and makes you feel almost like you’ve been baptized. I feel born again when I get out of the ocean. ― Beyoncé
Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being. — Rumi
Commentary on Matthew 14: Walking on Water
See if you recognize yourself in this story: Because maybe some of us are like the ones in the boat who are afraid. Maybe you are so caught up in the fear of making the wrong decision that you can’t make any decision at all. Or maybe you are like the one experiencing the thrill of stepping into the unknown – a new relationship or a new job or you’ve just moved to Denver leaving behind the familiar – and maybe the first few steps are ok but then it gets scary. Or maybe you or the person next to you is the one who is sinking in debt or depression or maybe you feel like you’re sinking because what you could handle last month you just can’t handle now. Or maybe you’re the one who knows you’re doomed, knows that all your own efforts have failed and you are crying out to God to save you and you’re the ones who Jesus has reached down to catch and you’re clinging on to the sweet hand of Jesus with all you’ve got. or maybe you’re the one in the boat looking in wonder all you’ve just seen… you’re the one who bears witness to the miracle and danger of it all and how the hand of God reaches down and pulls us up and you see it and can’t help but say “truly this is God.” At some point or other I know I have been all of the above … But all these characters in the walking on water story – the cautious ones in the boat, the brave one who walked for a time on water, the same one who is afraid and sinks and calls for help, and the ones who saw it all and confessed that Jesus is the son of God they are all actually equal in their relationship to God because…all of these and you have one thing in common: they are those whom Jesus draws near saying “it is I, do not be afraid”. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
This is a story about us in liminal space. Richard Rohr describes liminal space as: a unique spiritual position where human beings hate to be, but where God is always leading us. It is when we have left the “tried and true” but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when we are finally out of the way. In liminal space, we do not yet know where to look. Should we strain our eyes to get a clearer view of what we can only trust is before us? Dare we risk looking away from what is around us that we can easily see and understand? It is hard not to doubt and be afraid when we are in-between. Liminal space is often associated with rituals of passage. Sacred moments of transition require big steps toward a new way that is not yet clear and not without risk. We enter liminal space when we take a step without knowing quite what the next step will be. Some of us dare to step out in faith, take big risks, change the course of our lives. Others are thrust into liminal space by forces beyond their control, such as a diagnosis, an injury, a storm, a death. Some are wondering what they have done. All they know is that the boat is drifting away behind them, the waves are all around them, and Jesus still seems far away. We are in liminal space when we are not sure we believe everything we have been told. When we have many questions we are afraid to ask. When we want to renew our grounding in faith, but we are overwhelmed with options. When we know we need something but not yet sure what that something will be. In the in-between, do we have any faith at all? Liminal space is scary, but full of potential. It deepens our love enabling us to love outside the lines. It reveals a whole another world outside the box. It gives us visions of other dimensions. Jesus welcomes Peter when he dares to step out of the boat. Jesus saves Peter when he loses focus on what is ahead of him and gets lost in what he knows is around him. When you are in liminal space, muster up your faith and take a bold step into the unknown. The worst that can happen is Jesus will save you; however, you may do the spectacular like walking on water. — James York
Maybe it wasn’t a boat. Maybe this story invites you to recall another life or death situation. You might not want to recall it. You don’t have to do so. You know you could go there. You could go to a time when you were lost in a boat in a storm in the dark, either literally or figuratively. The external situation can vary, but the internal feelings are real … You know that. Everyone knows the feeling of being battered by the winds in the dark. The circumstances differ but we all experience our unique storms. While the external events are unique, the internal feelings we share in common as human beings. Actually, it is the dark that binds us. Perhaps that is why there is a holiness about it. The holiness of shared experience. The dark contains a sacredness that invites us to learn to walk in it. — John Shuck
July 11, 2021 Worship
Between miracles of feeding 5,000 people and walking on water: spiritual self-care and care for others, responding to need, addressing fear, refusing to be someone you’re not ..
You have been walking the water’s edge, holding up your robes to keep them dry. You must dive naked under, deeper, under a thousand times deeper. Love flows down. — Rumi
People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle. — Thich Nhat Hanh
See if you recognize yourself in this story: Because maybe some of us are like the ones in the boat who are afraid. Maybe you are so caught up in the fear of making the wrong decision that you can’t make any decision at all. Or maybe you are like the one experiencing the thrill of stepping into the unknown … and maybe the first few steps are ok but then it gets scary. Or maybe you or the person next to you is the one who is sinking … or maybe you feel like you’re sinking because what you could handle last month you just can’t handle now. Or maybe you’re the one who knows you’re doomed, knows that all your own efforts have failed and you are crying out to God to save you and you’re the ones who Jesus has reached down to catch and you’re clinging on to the sweet hand of Jesus with all you’ve got. or maybe you’re the one in the boat looking in wonder all you’ve just seen… you’re the one who bears witness to the miracle and danger of it all and how the hand of God reaches down and pulls us up and you see it and can’t help but say “truly this is God.” At some point or other I know I have been all of the above. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. — Bruce Lee
Don’t you realize that the sea is the home of water? All water is off on a journey unless it’s in the sea, and it’s homesick, and bound to make its way home someday. — Zora Neale Hurston
Songs about ‘Walking on Water’:
- Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) by Hillsong United (Christian)
- Walking on Water by Eminem with Beyonce (rap)
- Calm on the Water by Dolly Parton (country/Christian)
- Walk Across the Water by The Black Keys (rock)
- Calm the Waters by Watermark (Christian ballad)
- If I Could Walk on Water by Eddie Money (rock)
- Walking on Water by Need to Breathe (Christian rock)
- Walk on Water by Ozzy Osbourne (rock)
- Walk on Water by Elevation Rhythm (Christian rock)
- Walk on Water by Thirty Seconds to Mars (rock)
- I Walk on Water by Kaleo (Christian)
- Walk on Water by Britt Nicole (Christian pop)
Contemplative Water Audio Tracks:
- Ocean Waves (nature sounds relaxation/meditation/contemplation sound track)
- Calming Waters by Mindful (guided meditation)
Songs about ‘Needing You’:
- Baby I Need Your Loving by the Four Tops (rock)
- When I Need You cover by Rod Stewart (rock ballad)
- All You Need Is Love by The Beatles (rock)
- Everybody Needs Somebody to Love by Solomon Burke (rock)
- Everybody Needs Somebody to Love cover by The Blues Brothers (rock)
- I Need You by LeAnn Rimes (country)
- If I Needed You by Emmy Lou Harris & Don Williams (country)
- You Can’t Hurry Love by Phil Collins (rock)
- I Need You by Tim McGraw ft. Faith Hill (country)
- I Want You, I Need You, I Love You by Elvis Presley (rock)
- You Need Me, I Don’t You by Ed Sheeran (rock rap)
- Lord, I Need You and Love Like This by Lauren Daigle (Christian)
- To Love Somebody by Keith Urban (country)
- Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers (rock ballad)
- Need Someone by Mary Blige (rock ballad)
- All I Need Is a Miracle by Mike + The Mechanics (pop)
- Even If by Mercy Me (Christian)
- There Was Jesus by Zach Williams & Dolly Parton (country)
- I Need Your Love by Calvin Harris (pop)
Maybe — Mary Oliver
Sweet Jesus, talking
his melancholy madness,
stood up in the boat
and the sea lay down,
silky and sorry.
So everybody was saved
that night.
But you know how it is
when something
different crosses
the threshold—the uncles
mutter together,
the women walk away,
the young brother begins
to sharpen his knife.
Nobody knows what the soul is.
It comes and goes
like the wind over the water—
sometimes, for days,
you don’t think of it.
Maybe, after the sermon,
after the multitude was fed,
one or two of them felt
the soul slip forth
like a tremor of pure sunlight
before exhaustion,
that wants to swallow everything,
gripped their bones and left them
miserable and sleepy,
as they are now, forgetting
how the wind tore at the sails
before he rose and talked to it—
tender and luminous and demanding
as he always was—
a thousand times more frightening
than the killer storm.
The spirit is so near
that you can’t see it!
But reach for it…
don’t be a jar, full of water,
whose rim is always dry.
Don’t be the rider who gallops all night
and never sees the horse
that is beneath him.
— Rumi
Walking Water — Wyatt Townley
Inside us the ocean
sways like a cradle
in which we rock rock
and are drawn like the tide
to the moon twice a day
we carry our water and it carries us
we are a good pail with legs
foot by foot on the turning
mountain of the world
water walking on the prairie
walking water on the road
up the stairs through a door
where the view rushes out of us
through the window to the woods
rushing water in the desert
rushing water in this chair
and that one you’re in
water walking
and what is solid is not at all
what we thought the rock
worn away by the rocking
Resources to understand the setting of the Gospel of John:
- Stan Duncan’s Biblical scholarship: https://homebynow.blogspot.com/2015/07/so-what-did-do-on-that-mountain-feeding.html
- Biblical scholarship by Ginger Barfield: https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-17-2/commentary-on-john-61-21
- Biblical commentary by George Ewart: https://www.holytextures.com/2009/07/john-6-1-21-year-b-pentecost-july-24-july-30-sermon.html
WATER MEDITATIONS
…water is one of those symbols that shows up over and over again in the Bible. Richard Rohr says it’s a bookmark: that whenever you see the word “water”, you know that it signals an invitation from God, a sign of an opening into a spiritual experience. Baptism, the Israelites crossing through the Red Sea into freedom. — Kathleen McShane (full article)
We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity.
We are pain and what cures pain both.
We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.
— Rumi
To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. — Alan Watts
The water is your friend. You don’t have to fight with water, just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move. — Aleksandr Popov
Water is life’s mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water. — Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
WALKING on WATER REFLECTIONS
We didn’t build our bridges simply to avoid walking on water. Nothing so obvious. A bridge is a meeting place. A neutral place. A casual place. Enemies will choose to meet on a bridge and end their quarrel in that void… For lovers, a bridge is a possibility, a metaphor of their chances. And for the traffic in whispered goods, where else but a bridge in the night? — Jeanette Winterson
To walk on water, we need reliable guides. — Robert Vande Kappelle
In God’s eyes, walking on water is no more miraculous than the ability of hemoglobin to bond with oxygen inside a red blood corpuscle. — Deepak Chopra
You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help? — Mark Twain
Walking on water wasn’t built in a day. — Jack Kerouac
For as the heavens reach beyond earth and time, we swim in mercy as in an endless sea. — Psalms
Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend. — Albert Camus
There’s high, and there’s high, and to get really high–I mean so high that you can walk on the water, that high–that’s where I’m goin’. — George Harrison
A Word from Jesus calms the sea,
The stormy wind controls;
And gives repose and liberty
To tempest-tossed souls.
To Peter on the waves he came,
And gave him instant peace;
Thus he to me revealed his name,
And bid my sorrows cease. Then filled with wonder, joy and love,
Peter’s request was mine;
Lord, call me down, I long to prove
That I am wholly thine.
Unmoved at all I have to meet
On life’s tempestuous sea;
Hard, shall be easy; bitter, sweet,
So I may follow thee. He heard and smiled, and bid me try,
I eagerly obeyed;
But when from him I turned my eye,
How was my soul dismayed!
The storm increased on every side,
I felt my spirit shrink;
And soon, with Peter, loud I cried,
Lord, save me, or I sink.
Kindly he caught me by the hand,
And said, Why dost thou fear?
Since thou art come at my command,
And I am always near.
Upon my promise rest thy hope,
And keep my love in view;
I stand engaged to hold thee up,
And guide thee safely through.
— John Newton
COMMENTARY on WALKING on WATER (referring to multiple Gospel versions of this story)
It’s been said that if you want to walk on water, you have to get out of the boat. Sometimes getting out of the boat looks like showing up for another recovery meeting. Sometimes it looks like filling out hospital paperwork for an elderly neighbor. Sometimes it looks like making a casserole for the family down with the flu or offering free babysitting for the friend with a job interview. Sometimes it looks like jumping when it matters. What does “getting out of the boat” look like for you? What does it mean to “jump when it matters”? — Rachel Held-Evans
But all these characters in the walking on water story – the cautious ones in the boat, the brave one who walked for a time on water, the same one who is afraid and sinks and calls for help, and the ones who saw it all and confessed that Jesus is the son of God they are all actually equal in their relationship to
God because…all of these and you have one thing in common: they are those whom Jesus draws near saying “it is I, do not be afraid”. … But what happens on either side of his short little water walk? … In the storm Jesus is walking toward the boat … Jesus is reaching … he comes so much toward them all that finally he just gets in the damn boat. That’s about as with them as he can be. … the whole story is about how much Jesus walks toward them, reaches toward them, and then even gets in the boat with them. — Nadia Bolz-Weber (full sermon)
God is always calling on us to do the impossible. It helps me to remember that anything Jesus did during his life here on earth is something we should be able to do, too. … Sometimes I will sit on a sun-warmed rock to dry, and think of Peter walking across the water to meet Jesus. As long as he didn’t remember that we human beings have forgotten how to walk on water, he was able to do it. — Madeline L’Engle
This is not what I bargained for, not the way I pictured it all in my head as I prepared to step out of the boat … The waves no longer seem inviting — they are a bit scary and unwelcoming. The boat seems much warmer, stable, secure, and yes — safe. Faith in me reminds me that it’s all an illusion — all the trappings and walls and safeguards we wrap around ourselves are really just as flimsy as a wooden boat on a stormy sea and that walking on water with Jesus is — in a reality that I can’t fully see yet — actually safer… Now is not the time for me to make the pro/con list — in fact, that list may never work for a life of faith. Now is the time for me to keep my eyes on Jesus and refuse to look down. My feet are wet and cold and I keep glancing back to a boat I can no longer return to but I don’t know what lies ahead… When we obey in faith, there is often an in-between space called liminal space. This is the space after we take our big step of faith out of the boat and come ahead with Jesus and before He shows us what’s next. It’s the time between what was and the next chapter of our journey. It’s a transition phase where we no longer fit where we were but don’t yet fit where we’re going. It can feel barren or we can choose to harness that time. It’s a waiting room, a threshold as we embark on something new... This liminal space feels like I’m trying to walk on water in the middle of the night. It’s dark. There are no road signs or directions — only the faint persistent memory of how certain I was when I stepped out. I am aware that God is near but the wobbliness of the water beneath my feet feels so foreign that I wonder how this can be a safe place in God’s will.— Mary Gallagher (full article)
It is true that Jesus was already walking on water when Peter got out of the boat. But I am not that impressed by Jesus walking on water. I mean, he was God, after all. Of course, he could walk on water. But for Peter, it is different. He was a human being, like me. And I identify with Peter. He made a lot of mistakes. He sometimes misunderstood Jesus’ teachings. He argued with the other disciples about which one was the greatest. He wanted to build housing for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah on the sacred ground of the Mount of Transfiguration, completely misunderstanding the message that Moses and Elijah had brought. He tried to talk Jesus out of sacrificing his life and balked at Jesus’ offer to wash his feet. He fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus as about to be crucified and, when Jesus was arrested, Peter denied him three times. And when Jesus ordered him to walk on water, he did it trustingly for a while, then he became fearful and went under. Jesus had to “save” him. Yet Peter was the first disciple to recognize Jesus as the Messiah and the first to realize that the man walking on water through the storm that day was Jesus. He was the only disciple to get out of the boat and he did walk on water, even if he eventually succumbed to his doubts and started to sink. As a disciple, Peter followed Jesus wholeheartedly and was dismayed by the dumb things he sometimes did. I believe it was both because of his mistakes and his faithfulness that Jesus designated him as the Rock on which he would build his church… I love the story of Peter walking on water because it is about taking spiritual risks and about faith and hope and trust. I feel as if I have spent a lot of my life walking on water, spiritually, psychologically, and materially. Sometimes I have felt as if I was sinking, too.
I also love the story because it so dramatically captures the concept of liminal space. The word “liminal” comes from the Latin word for “threshold” and liminal space refers to an in-between or transitional condition in which one is “neither here nor there,” or, sometimes, both here and there. Peter has left the boat but has not arrived anywhere yet. He is in transition. He is in a liminal space. — Jacqueline Wallen (full article)
Reflections on boldness, mercy & grace: themes from Hebrews 4
How will you come boldly into the presence of God, of Love? What does it mean, for you, to trust that you will receive the help you require, if not the help you desire, even if you cannot possibly merit it? Have you ever felt such a moment, being utterly loved and supported? Have you ever offered that sort of love and support to someone else? What sort of grace, or help, do you need?
How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root,
and in that freedom bold.
— William Wordsworth (excerpt)
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute –
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated —
Begin it, and the work will be completed!
— John Anster (excerpt) translation of Part One of
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s“Faust”
On Boldness
Dream a big dream, a bold dream. Don’t play conservatively between the 40 yard lines. Don’t just play it safe. — Robert Kraft
Fortune befriends the bold. — Emily Dickinson
Be bold, be brave enough to be your true self. — Queen Latifah
Shine like the whole universe is yours. — Rumi
Continue reading “Reflections on boldness, mercy & grace: themes from Hebrews 4”
Reflections on New Year’s Eve, ‘kairos’ and ‘chronos’ forms of time
What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?
— lyrics by Frank Loesser, performed by Ella Fitzgerald
Aah, but I thought I’d ask you just the same
What are you doing New Year’s, New Year’s Eve?Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight
When it’s exactly twelve o’clock that night
Welcoming in the New Year, New Year’s EveMaybe I’m crazy to suppose
I’d ever be the one you chose
Out of a thousand invitations, You received
Aah, but in case I stand one little chance
Here comes the jackpot question in advance
What are you doing New Year’s, New Year’s Eve?
Of Time
- Article: Does Time Really Exist?
- Article: Is Time an Illusion? From the Buddha to Brian Greene
- Article: The nature of time through physics.
It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one. ― George Harrison
Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.’ ― Lao Tzu
Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can. ― Dalai Lama XIV
Of Chronos
Chronology, the time which changes things, makes them grow older, wears them out, and manages to dispose of them, chronologically, forever. — Madeline L’Engle
The concept of time as a way to measure the duration of events is not only deeply intuitive, it also plays an important role in our mathematical descriptions of physical systems. — phys.org
Chronos is clocks, deadlines, watches, calendars, agendas, planners, schedules, beepers … Chronos keeps track … Chronos is the world’s time … Chronos requires speed so that it won’t be wasted. Kairos requires space so that it might be savored. We do in chronos. In kairos we’re allowed to be … It takes only a moment to cross over from chronos into kairos, but it does take a moment. ― Sarah Ban Breathnach
Of Kairos
Kairos is transcendence, infinity, reverence, joy, passion, love, the Sacred. Kairos is intimacy with the Real. Kairos is time at her best. … Kairos is Spirit’s time. We exist in chronos. We long for kairos. That’s our duality.
… It takes only a moment to cross over from chronos into kairos, but it does take a moment. All that kairos asks is our willingness to stop running long enough to hear the music of the spheres. ― Sarah Ban Breathnach
Thank God there is kairos too: again the Greeks were wiser than we are. They had two words for time: chronos and kairos. … Kairos is not measurable. Kairos is ontological … Kairos can sometimes enter, penetrate, break through chronos … The bush, the burning bush, is in kairos, not any burning bush, but the particular burning bush before which Moses removed his shoes; the bush I pass by on my way to the brook. In kairos that part of us which is not consumed in the burning is wholly awake. … The artist at work is in kairos. The child at play, totally thrown outside himself in the game, be it building a sandcastle or making a daisy chain, is in kairos. In kairos, we become what we are called to be as human beings, cocreators with God, touching on the wonder of creation. — Madeline L’Engle, Walking on Water
There are moments, as I myself have emphasized on different occasions, in which “kairos,” the right time, is united with “logos,” the “eternal truth,” and in which the fate of philosophy is decided for a special period. — Paul Tillich
Oh sky, without me,
do not change,
Oh moon, without me,
do not shine;
Oh earth, without me,
do not grow,
Oh time, without me,
do not go …
― Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi (excerpt from poem)
Seasons of Love
(lyrics by Jonathan Larson, from Rent)
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear.
five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure,
Measure a year?
In daylights?
In sunsets?
In midnights?
In cups of coffee?
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?
In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure a year in a life?
How about love?
How about love?
How about love?
Measure in love…
Seasons of love…
Seasons of love…
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
Five hundred twenty five thousand journeys to plan.
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes.
How do you measure a life of a woman or a man?
In truths that she learned,
or in times that he cried?
In bridges he burned,
or the way that she died?
It’s time now to sing out,
though the story never ends.
Let’s celebrate remember a year in a life
of friends