Faith@Ease

A Reflection:

“. . . and he was asleep.” [Matthew 8:23-27]

I am more grateful than startled by this revelation in Matthew’s gospel story. Jesus sleeps through a storm!

As the grandson of two professional Newfoundland schooner captains whom I never knew, I have always been attracted to boats; alas, as a city slicker, I’ve rarely been aboard one.

I remember going on a first-and-only deep-sea fishing trip as a young man with a group of journalist friends in North Carolina; it was my first cruise on troubled waters. To everyone’s amazement, I hooked the first catch of the day, and reeled it in like a pro.

Once my twelve-inch sea trout was aboard, I stood and began to grow dizzy and stricken; I became seasick. The chartered boat captain, alone among my companions who wasn’t laughing, told me to go below and lie down.

I slept in the rollicking, rolling cabin for about an hour, and for the rest of the trip I followed the captain’s advice to keep my eyes on the horizon or the distant shoreline while standing.

There I was, aboard an ocean-going fishing boat for the first time, and I slept through a good part of the trip (retching over the side several times when I wasn’t at rest). My grandfathers surely were rolling in their graves, or perhaps rocking in delighted laughter from their heavenly haven!

However, I smile because ultimately, we are strengthened and cured with Jesus asleep in our boat!

Thank you, Lord Jesus.

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[This meditation grew out of a post written originally for an exercise in lectio divina for an online course I took offered through the The Center for Lifelong Learning at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA.]

[The selection from Matthew’s Gospel is analyzed in the course text by M. Basil Pennington O.C.S.O. Call to the Center: The Gospel’s Invitation to Deeper Prayer (3rd Ed. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press. 2003)—Pennington’s reflection is from the chapter, “In the Boat of Centering Prayer,” pp. 83-87).]

By Allan Roy Andrews

Experience No. 1:

Radio-television personality and humorist Art Linkletter died last week at 97. Until about two years ago, when he suffered a mild stroke, Linkletter was still active on the philanthropic circuit.
A few years before that, I heard Linkletter entertain at a small school fundraiser. Linkletter, whose adoptive father was a Canadian preacher, told someone at that gathering that he “liked to help out small Christian schools.”
In his comments that night, Linkletter told a joke that I have commandeered as a staple of fun found in growing older. Here’s the joke:
“You know you’re getting old when you bend over to pick something off the floor and you say to yourself, ‘What else can I do while I’m down here?’”
I have learned experientially what Linkletter spoke of, so I’ve used the joke a number of times, and it never fails to elicit hearty laughs.
Two of Linkletter’s books also keep me smiling: Kids Say the Darndest Things, and Old Age is Not For Sissies.

Experience No. 2:

For the group’s edification, I recently read to my Bible discussion gathering a favorite poem by Billy Collins called “Flock.”
Here’s the brief poem:

It has been calculated that each copy of the
Gutenberg Bible . . . required the skins of 300 sheep.
–from an article on printing.

I can see them squeezed into the holding pen
behind the stone building
where the printing press is housed,

all of them squirming around
to find a little room
and looking so much alike

it would be nearly impossible
to count them,
and there is no telling

which one will carry the news
that the Lord is a shepherd,
one of the few things they already know.

–from The Trouble with Poetry, by Billy Collins. (Random House, 2005.)

After a moment of silent reflection, one member of our group put me—and several others—in stitches when he said, “I’m having a Gary Larson moment,” referring to the prize-winning cartoonist of The Other Side who was noted for his surprising and often warped sense of humor.
“I can see a room full of monks, having just sheared a flock of sheep, taking up their calligraphy pens and writing verses of sacred scripture on the flanks of the shorn animals,” my friend continued. “They probably had a difficult time keeping the pages in order!”
It was a wonderful moment, and if Billy Collins ever reads about our experience, I have a feeling he’ll be smiling broadly too. And if Larson ever reads this report of my friend’s experience, he’ll probably be saying, “I wish I’d thought of that!”