Thursday, June 26, 2008

Peter and I

So, this is a story that works as a journal entry as well. It really discusses how I am seeing/feeling right now. I wrote it a few days ago and have basically just stared at it before I finally decided to put it out there for viewing. I hope that you enjoy reading it, I hope that it means something to you. Tell me about it. I want to know what is good/atrocious. Let's discuss.

-Linc

I think it was the rain that woke me and I found myself in the keel of a sinking boat. The oars were gone. The water splashed on my forehead and chose either the left or right side of my face to trail down. I lay still for a few moments before I knew the danger that I was in and began throwing handfuls of water overboard, while searching for land. The rain was heavy and the wind drove. As my boat was thrown to the crests and troughs, I searched for safety and found only a low haze that blocked everything more than what would be a block away.

I decided the only thing to do was keep the boat from filling with rain until the weather broke. I reached a crest and began to descend. Just as a new wave blocked the horizon, I thought I saw someone step out from the cloud bank, which I now saw was thick and definite like the curtains of a stage. This desert is much too wet for mirages, I thought, as I kept my focus on the water inside the boat for fear of that which walked upon it outside. A haunting vision can be written off after it has passed but trying to discount the fear invoked when the vision is present is like ignoring the dog with its teeth in your arm.

“Lincoln,” He called to me, and I was compelled to look up and when I did, I knew that He was no haunting vision, but was like something I had always known, something I knew before I knew knowing. Primordial and Right and Abundant.

“O, Jesus, I thought you were a ghost.” Then and there I knew that I was living out the story of Peter. I was going to walk on the water. “Call unto me, Lord, and I then shall walk upon the water.” I was putting on my best Peter, trying to be that disciple full of zeal on whom Jesus built the foundations of his church. I loaded my voice with archaic language as if my words could make this Man or this Moment more solemn.

Jesus seemed to sigh as he said, “Lincoln, that boat will no longer hold you. Come to me on the water and we will walk together.”

My heart leapt. I had read this story and I knew precisely what to do. Peter was able to walk on the water only when he was full of faith and kept his eyes on Jesus. He fell because he was worried about the storm around him and looked away. Be like Peter, be like Peter, Full of Faith, Never doubting, I thought as I slammed my eyes into Jesus’. I blindly put my hands on the side of the boat and swung my legs over the side. What I did not see was that the boat grew taller in the aft than it was in the bow and my feet slammed into the edge. I began to tumble toward the water. At all times I kept my eyes on His and watched them turn slightly sad, the way a parents would when their unflappable child loses a spelling bee. The parent knows how the odds are stacked against winning, but the child in invincibly unaware.

Be like Peter, be like Peter. At this point in the fall, I had spun and contorted in order to maintain eye contact and found my self with my back to the water looking at Jesus upside down. I felt victorious, convinced that I had conquered my environment as well as a treacherous boat design and would shortly find myself resting on a bed of water. This is why I didn’t inhale before I sank beneath the waves.

I think that I was angry first. How could I fail when I knew exactly what to do to walk on water? I had read that story so many times. My empty lungs opened and I gasped the water. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I nearly raged or nearly wept. It was torture to see the shadow of Jesus’ feet on the other side, where the air was, where life was. I thrashed and pulled but never drew any closer. With water in my chest, I reasoned that this was where I would die and so unsanctimonious a death with physical salvation
visible and unattainable, must mean that my spiritual salvation was just as far from reach.

Lightning flashed and an eternally pierced hand shot through the water. It latched onto my shoulder and ripped me to safety. It hurt. I spat that gasp of water and it disappeared into the sea like a useless fish thrown back. The rain had stopped. The moon was out. I was enjoying oxygen, as I never had. I was on the water. I wasn’t looking into Jesus’ eyes. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think, Lincoln.” It hurt, but in the same way that the pain in my shoulder was a hurt that saved.

“But I did right what Peter did wrong. I believed that I would float and I kept my eyes on you. I wasn’t worried about the storm. I did this better than Peter did.”

“Walk with me.” It wasn’t slippery. I had always thought that it would be, but I found my footing to be more sure here that it ever was on land. I spread my toes and saw the water fill in between them. Walking on water is filled with expectation. A lake never passing the soles of your feet is like a three beat pause in your favorite song. “Of course you did those things, you had the story. But you must understand that whenever I bring someone out here, their challenge is going to be their own. Peter loved me, but he had fear and wasn’t sure if I was sufficient for him. That was his challenge. It clearly wasn’t yours, I wish you could have seen what you looked like when you fell out of that boat. Lincoln, you fail to be present. You concerned yourself with living Peter’s story and passing a test when you should have known that I simply wanted you to join me. With all that worry of being full of faith and being more impressive that Peter,” (Which is exactly what I had been worried about) “you missed the fact that I should have been both your means and your end. You should never be too busy with someone else’s story, so that you miss what is happening in your own.”