We often make the deep water a metaphor for going out on mission work to distant places or places we have never been. Peter and the disciples would later venture into places across Europe and Asia they never could have imagined. But I wonder if deep water could also be a metaphor for the uttermost places within our hearts,
Whether we noticed or not, Jesus was present to us today. And he will be tomorrow. Whether in the face of a neighbor who needs our compassion and our care, or whether in the Divine Love that asks us, in some moments, to set aside our striving and our doing and simply rest in its healing embrace.
Jesus came to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and to call us to believe all over again in the idea of Jubilee, even when you can’t see it, even when you’re not sure if it could happen or has ever happened.
Jesus saw nonviolence not as a passive response, but as a way of directly confronting evil in such a manner that he, and we, do not succumb to it. Instead, he, and we, show it for what it is to the world and to the perpetrators themselves. Jesus sought and still seeks to replace the way of violence with
As we step into another year of life on Earth together, perhaps one resolution we could make is to take seriously what energies we let our lives be exposed to. And then commit to return, over and again, week after week, to be nourished and transformed by these living sacraments to the way, not of violence, but of love.
We’ve all got different ideas about what constitutes a disaster: everyday mishaps, personal tragedies, political nightmares, global catastrophes. But by definition, from its roots, a disaster is to be without a star. Dis-aster.
The incarnation was not a one-time event for Jesus. It is a springboard for entering relationships with us –
relationships that are lasting,
relationships that are timeless.
Sometimes we hum quietly or sing softly in the dark, but even then we’re not singing alone. Other times, we join in a mighty chorus, encouraged by the sound and swell of so many voices, to see and sing an impossible and outlandish story into being.
Joy is something more profound and permanent than momentary happiness or temporary pleasure. It is bathed in the muck, mire, and tears of living a story – a shared story.