If we should falter when trouble surrounds us
When the wind and the waves are wild and high
We will look away to Him who rules the waters;
Who speaks His Peace into the angry tide.
~Fernando Ortega
Sweet Jesus, talking
his melancholy madness,
stood up in the boat
and the sea lay down,
silky and sorry.
So everybody was saved
that night…
Nobody knows what the soul is.
It comes and goes
like the wind over the water —
sometimes, for days,
you don’t think of it.
Maybe, after the sermon,
after the multitude was fed,
one or two of them felt
the soul slip forth
like a tremor of pure sunlight
before exhaustion,
that wants to swallow everything,
gripped their bones and left them
miserable and sleepy,
as they are now, forgetting
how the wind tore at the sails
before he rose and talked to it —
tender and luminous and demanding
as he always was —
a thousand times more frightening
than the killer storm.
~Mary Oliver from “Maybe”
Could it be?
Could it be that I am more frightened of the power of Christ to say “Peace be still!” to the storm threatening to drown us all (and it heeds His command!) than I am of the waves themselves?
I sleep through my diminishing days, not nearly focused enough on each passing moment that never is to come again. Those moments crash to shore and then pull back to be lost forever.
I tend to be blinded to what is inevitably coming, how I have tumbled over the years like waves, overcome by their passage.
He is tender and luminous and demanding as He talks to my heart, not just to the relentless stormy destructive sea.
Peace be still!
And so I obey, forgiven, and am saved by grace,
so silky and sorry.
Take heart, my friend. The Lord is with us.
This year’s Lenten theme for Barnstorming is a daily selection from songs and hymns about Christ’s profound sacrifice on our behalf.
If we remain silent about Him, the stones themselves will shout out and start to sing (Luke 19:40).
In His name, may we sing…
Take heart, my Friend, we’ll go together
This uncertain road that lies ahead
Our faithful God has always gone before us
And He will lead the Way once again.
Take heart, my Friend, we can walk together
And if our burdens become too great
We can hold up and help one another
In God’s LOVE, in God’s Grace.
Take heart my Friend, the Lord is with us
As He has been all the days of our lives
Our assurance every morning
Our Defender in the Night.
If we should falter when trouble surrounds us
When the wind and the waves are wild and high
We will look away to HIM who rules the waters;
Who speaks His Peace into the angry tide.
He is our Comfort, our Sustainer
He is our Help in time of need
When we wander, He is our Shepherd
He who watches over us NEVER sleeps.
Take heart my friend, the Lord is with us
As He has been all the days of our lives
Our Assurance every morning
Our Defender every night.
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Barnstorming 
Powerful, soul-penetrating. A germane interpretation of Jesus’
miracle of walking on the water during a storm that allows us to
understand how His teaching used Parables to relate to the
ordinary living circumstances of His audience and for us today.
‘Tender…and demanding…yes — but also Loving and Caring.
Gentle reminders about the importance of our fleeting ‘todays.’
and for not forgetting or minimizing the joys and the woes of these times..
They are important in helping to retain the memories of our Journey
and thus contribute to the important gift of Wisdom!
(Thank you, dear Emily. You and Mary create such inspiring, pertinent
‘tell it like it is’ prose and poetry together.)
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