The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [67]
One of my favorite stories from the Second Week is the storm at sea, which is contained in several Gospels. It’s often helpful for people who are struggling with big problems in their lives—i.e., everyone.
In the version of the story in Luke’s Gospel (8:22–25), the disciples are in a boat with Jesus, when a sudden squall comes up. (On the Sea of Galilee, this happens even today.) “The boat was filling with water, and they were in danger,” writes Luke. Terror stricken, they ask Jesus, who is asleep, why he doesn’t help them. “Master, Master, we are perishing!” they shout. Jesus awakes and “rebukes” the wind and the rain, stilling the storm with his word. Then he turns to them and asks, “Where is your faith?”
The disciples are stunned. “Who then is this,” they say, “that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?”
Ignatius invites you to enter into the scene by “composing the place” by imagining yourself in the story with as much detail as you can muster.
Your starting points are the five senses.
The first step, after asking for God’s help in the prayer, is to ask yourself: What do you see? Assuming that you’re imagining yourself on the boat (instead of imagining the scene from a distance, which is another option), you might picture yourself with some of the disciples around you, all of you huddled together on the little wooden boat.
There’s plenty to imagine when it comes to your “imaginative sight.” What might the boat look like? You might have seen photos of the “Jesus Boat,” a fishing vessel from the time of Jesus that was recovered from the Sea of Galilee in 1986. It is a long wooden boat with slats set up for uncomfortable-looking seats. As you picture this, you might realize that it’s crowded for the disciples on board, something you have never thought about before. By the way, you don’t have to be an expert in ancient cultures, or an archaeologist, to do this kind of prayer. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know exactly what Palestinian boats looked like in the first century. “Your” boat could be a modern version.
What does the scene outside the boat look like? Part of the fear of sailing in the dark is not knowing what will happen next, whether a lightning strike will hit the mast, a wave will crash over the side, or an unexpected swell will capsize the craft. And at night it’s hard to see the waves except when they are lit up by flashes of lightning. With only one of your imaginative senses—sight—you can begin to experience some of the fear that the disciples must have felt.
Then imagine seeing Jesus asleep in the boat. Even something as simple as noticing him sleeping might make you ask new questions about Jesus. For instance, you might realize that his being asleep shows not so much lack of care for his friends, or even ignorance of the possible danger, but simple fatigue after a long day. Jesus led an active life, you may realize, with people always clamoring for his attention and care. How could he not have been tired?
Your understanding of the fear of the disciples is now coupled with compassion for the humanity of Jesus, who, after all, had a physical body that tired.
It’s one thing to read a Gospel story and simply hear the words “Jesus was asleep.” It’s quite another to imagine it, to see it in your mind’s eye. You may gain new insight into the humanity of Jesus in a way not possible from reading it in a book, or hearing it in a homily, because it’s your insight.
Next ask yourself: What do you hear? You might imagine not only the howling wind and the booming thunder, but also the sound of huge waves crashing over the side of the boat. Maybe you imagine the sloshing of water over the floorboards, and the fishing gear and nets clattering noisily on the