The Gospel Text
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, "Let us go across to the other side." And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?" He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace! Be still!" Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, "Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?" And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" -Mark 4:35-41
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About This Weeks Prompts for Meditation
The story of the power of the storm and the calming of it by Jesus can go in many directions in personal meditation. But the readings I've chosen have to do with awe in the presence of nature.
This week the “stilling of the storm” on the sea of Galilee is juxtaposed (track 2) with the beginning of Job 38: Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?.. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? …who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth from the womb; when I made clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and door, and said, “Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed”? I think the purpose of this juxtaposition is to link Jesus with both the creation and mastery over the elements.
But I love to point out that the writer of Job 38-41 puts human beings in their place. For ten verses God compares humans unfavorably with the hippo in the covert of the reeds under the lotus plants. (39:15-24) The glory of the human being is somewhat lower than the crocodile’s goodly frame, coat of mail, terrible teeth, his sneezings, his breath, his underparts. A full chapter (41:1-34) is devoted to humorous cartoon-like sarcasm: human weapons verses the majestic reptile.
The collection of meditation prompts this week evoke the humility experienced in the presence of nature.
Ever so vulnerably,
-Suzanne
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Meditation One (introit)
healed ere we are aware
No amount of word-making will ever make a single soul to know these mountains. As well seek to warm the naked and frost bitten by lectures on caloric and pictures of flame. One day’s exposure to mountains is better than carloads of books. See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographer’s plates. No earthly chemicals are so sensitive as those of the human soul. All that is required is exposure, and purity of material. The pure in heart shall see God! … Come to the woods, for here is rest. … The galling harness of civilization drops off, and we are healed ere we are aware.
–John Muir 1838-1914
But if you wish to know how these things come about,
ask grace not instruction,
desire not understanding,
the groaning of prayer not diligent reading,
the Spouse not the teacher,
God not man,
darkness not clarity,
not light but the fire
that totally inflames and carries us into God
by ecstatic unctions and burning affections.
– Bonaventure 1221-1274
The Soul’s Journey Into God
The goal is not to read a book;
the goal is to read the story
taking place all around us.
-Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme
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| When the Morning Stars Sang Together, William Blake, 1820 |
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But the silence in the mind
is when we live best, within
listening distance of the silence we call God...
It is a presence, then,
whose margins are our margins; that calls us out over our
own fathoms.
-R.S. Thomas 1913-2000
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| Jesus stills the storm, Gospel Book of Echternach, 11th century miniature |
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Meditation Two (insight)
nor can foot feel, being shod
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings.
-Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844-1889
God’s Grandeur
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| Creation of Animals, Master Bertram, 1383 |
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Meditation Three (integration)
numinous energy
Originating power brought forth a universe. All the energy that would ever exist in the entire course of time erupted as a single quantum – a singular gift – existence. If in the future, stars would blaze and lizards would blink in their light, these actions would be powered by the same numinous energy that flared forth at the dawn of time.
There was no place in the universe that was separate from the originating power of the universe. Each thing of the universe had its very roots in this realm. Even space-time itself was a tossing, churning, foaming out of the originating reality, instant by instant. Each of the sextillion particles that foamed into existence had its root in this quantum vacuum, this originating reality.
The birth of the universe was not an event in time. Time begins simultaneously with the birth of existence. The realm or power that brings forth the universe is not itself an event in time, nor a position in space, but is rather the very matrix out of which the conditions arise that enable temporal events to occur in space. Though the originating power gave birth to the universe fifteen billion years ago, this realm of power is not simply located there at that point of time, but is rather a condition of every moment of the universe, past, present, and to come.
– Brian Swimme & Thomas Berry
The Universe Story
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The Last Word
Thou mastering me
God! Giver of breath and bread;
World’s strand, sway of the sea;
Lord of living and dead;
Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh,
Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.
-Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Wreck of the Deutschland (first verse)
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Miscellany
(a completely different direction...)
However, the progression of the crossing stories demonstrates a much greater message. Although Jesus continued to use his power to still storms, in each crossing Mark recounts that Jesus grew increasingly impatient with the presumption of his disciples that he would simply perform a divine act and in every instance relieve them of their fear. They seemed to completely ignore that they also had responsibilities. They had an obligation to endure and to find inner calm through faith. By the final crossing, Jesus was totally exasperated and demanded to know if his disciples had yet learned anything whatsoever.
[Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? Mark 8:17-18]
-Alexander J. Shaia
The Hidden Power of the Gospels
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