Thursday, January 10, 2019

Stormy Seas


 When Jesus 
realized that
 they were about
 to come and
 take him by force
 to make him king,
 he withdrew again
 to the mountain by himself.
 When evening 
came, his disciples went down to the lake, got into a
 boat, and started across the lake to Capernaum. It was now dark,
 and Jesus had not yet come to them. The lake became rough 
because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about
 three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the lake and coming 
near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, ‘It is I;
 do not be afraid.’ Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land towards which they were 
going.
 The next day the crowd that had stayed on the other side of the
 lake saw that there had been only one boat there. They also saw
 that Jesus had not got into the boat with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. Then some boats from Tiberias 
came near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord
 had given thanks. So when the crowd saw that neither Jesus nor 
his disciples were there, they themselves got into the boats and 
went to Capernaum looking for Jesus.
 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to 
him, ‘Rabbi, when did you come here?’ Jesus answered them,
 ‘Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you
 saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not 
work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures 
for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For it is on
 him that God the Father has set his seal. John 6:15-27

Stormy Seas

The wind is high and bitter
an angry and fierce scolding demon
our calm and capacity is all gone
we tremble and we mutter prayers
abandoned, lost and all alone.

Whatever we had hoped for
we could not imagine this sorrow
the pounding and the sliding
frigid waves across our rails
the taste of blood as we bite down.

This life of faith we walk in the dark
some days can be saturated with light
most often our humanity is on show
we stumble, we cry, we are sure
that our failures are written in the sky.

The storms will rise, indeed are here
the words we sing lost in the gale
there is yet another sunrise or two
another shore that will claim us
we are travelers all and all are at home.



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