Sunflower spent a day in bed, feeling ill.
Yesterday was okay – I’m starting to feel better today. I’m also communicating better with my companion, on the level that he needs to work with – not the big picture, just what I feel about it all. I like him a lot. He is a lovely, gentle man, but I feel that there are constraints and I find that limiting if I’m being honest: and I feel pressure to feel something when I’m praying so that I have something to tell him about.
I meditated on Matthew’s gospel, where Peter gets out of the boat during the storm and walks on the water.
At the beginning, I am perplexed about how Jesus is going to get to the other side. I get into the boat anyway, with Peter and two others. I ask them how, but they don’t know. In the end they tell me to shut up and stop going on about it. As the storm breaks out, there are two things that I think are really strange: one, I don’t feel sick and two, no water is coming up into the boat – not a single drop – even though the waves are crashing around. I feel safe. I should be scared, but there is not a single moment when I believe we will go under and drown. It’s sitting in the middle of all this turmoil and knowing that it cannot harm you. Me and one of the apostles keep rowing and it’s like that dream, where you are trying to cross the railway line or the road and you can’t, and there’s a train (or car) coming, and you know that if you don’t get off you’re going to be hit. It is like that dream, going nowhere, BUT without the fear. Then Jesus appears, walking on the water, which is calm and flat all around Him. He calls out, telling us it’s okay, and Peter gets out of the boat. I shout to Peter:
Peter, you daft eejit! What are you doing?
…but he goes and walks on the water! Anyway, when Peter sinks, Jesus pulls him out and brings him into the boat.
What do I feel? Regret. That not only did I not do what Peter did, I didn’t even think about doing it. Peter has the desire to be with Jesus and he acted on impulse, without even thinking about it, or what the consequences might be; and he achieved something both impossible and amazing. Did that impulse come from Jesus? And does it matter? There was Peter’s desire and his faith, and God bailed him out when it went wrong.
