Skip to main content

Wind and Waves

‘Be Calm’ by Sieger Köder

A monologue delivered by the wonderful Jim Allen yesterday as part of morning worship focussed around Luke 8:22-25. I originally wrote it for Jim as part of the New Irish Arts 10th Anniversary event in the Waterfront nearly 10 years ago... but he's been using it here and there since then, but I've never used it again myself... So it was nice to have it come "home" yesterday...

That night he said to us, "Come on… Let’s go over to the other side of the lake." Tell you the truth, we were glad to get into a boat and leave the crowds behind… They really got on your goat after a while... I do not know how he put up with it all the time… was it any wonder that he fell asleep as soon as we left the shore…  We needed four boats to get us all across, but there were enough of us who had been fishermen to skipper them all… I was in charge of the one Jesus was in, and I was proud in a strange sort of a way… but all my pride flew out the window when a furious storm blew up out of nowhere… It happens all the time, so some people have asked why we didn’t just take it in our stride… Why were we so afraid?… Typical land-lubber’s attitude… Because we make our living from the sea, we know how dangerous it can be… we have reason to be afraid…
This storm was as bad as any I had ever been out in… We quickly lost sight of the other boats and the waves were breaking over the boat so quickly and with such force that it was impossible to bale it out… The mainsail was ripped in two and was dancing on the yard-arm like a demon. The others were holding onto ropes, or the gunwales or anything they could grab hold of… They looked at me with terror in their eyes and shouted at me to do something. But I knew we were going down and there was nothing I could do about it… And yet Jesus slept through it all… When I saw that, I cracked… I did something I never thought I would do… And even today I can’t believe I did… But I reached down and shook him awake and said. "Rabbi, don't you care if we all drown?"  I don’t know what I expected him to do… I mean he was a carpenter, not a sailor.
But without answering me, he stirred himself, stood up and said to the wind and the waves in a quiet but authoritative voice "Quiet! Be still!" And the wind died down and it was completely calm.
Then, and only then did he turn to me, and the other disciples who were with me and said, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"
We were more terrified now than when we had been in the middle of the storm… Someone asked, under his breath, "Who is he? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"
And I thought to myself… He spoke to those waves as if he had done that before… And they responded as if they had known his voice for a long, long time…

Selah

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Woman of no Distinction

Don't often post other people's stuff here... But I found this so powerful that I thought I should. It's a performance poem based on John 4: 4-30, and I have attached the original YouTube video below. A word for women, and men, everywhere... "to be known is to be loved, and to be loved is to be known." I am a woman of no distinction of little importance. I am a women of no reputation save that which is bad. You whisper as I pass by and cast judgmental glances, Though you don’t really take the time to look at me, Or even get to know me. For to be known is to be loved, And to be loved is to be known. Otherwise what’s the point in doing either one of them in the first place? I WANT TO BE KNOWN. I want someone to look at my face And not just see two eyes, a nose, a mouth and two ears; But to see all that I am, and could be all my hopes, loves and fears. But that’s too much to hope for, to wish for, or pray for So I don’t, not anymore. Now I keep to myself And by that

Psalm for Harvest Sunday

A short responsive psalm for us as a call to worship on Harvest Thanksgiving Sunday, and given that it was pouring with rain as I headed into church this morning the first line is an important remembrance that the rain we moan about is an important component of the fruitfulness of the land we live in: You tend the land and water it And the earth produces its abundance. You crown each year with your bounty, and our storehouses overflow with your goodness. The mountain meadows are covered with flocks and the valleys are filled with corn; Your people celebrate your boundless grace They shout for joy and sing. from Psalm 65

Anointed

There has been a lot of chatter on social media among some of my colleagues and others about the liturgical and socio-political niceties of Saturday's coronation and attendant festivities, especially the shielding of the anointing with the pictured spoon - the oldest and perhaps strangest of the coronation artefacts. Personally I thought that was at least an improvement on the cloth of gold canopy used in the previous coronation, but (pointless) debates are raging as to whether this is an ancient practice or was simply introduced in the previous service to shield the Queen from the TV cameras, not for purposes of sacredness, but understandable coyness, if she actually had to bare her breast bone in puritan 1950s Britain. But as any church leader knows, anything performed twice in a church becomes a tradition. All this goes to show that I did actually watch it, while doing other things - the whole shooting match from the pre-service concert with yer wumman in that lemon-