Gone Fishing

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breakfast on the beach with Jesus, disciples, fish, fisherman, fishing, Gospel of Thomas, John, Nag Hammadi Codex, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today’s gospel recounts the wonderful beginning of John’s 21st chapter that takes us from an early morning fishing experience to breakfast on the beach with Jesus. In this post-resurrection story, seven of the disciples were together at the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee, probably still wondering what to do now that the bottom had fallen out of their world. Peter, leaning into all he had known before meeting Jesus, said to the others, “I’m going fishing.” They all jumped at the chance to do something familiar so off they went. Unfortunately, they caught nothing all night. It was at dawn, John records, that Jesus yelled to them to try again with the nets in a new way. In his version, they didn’t quibble with the seemingly ridiculous dictum that just moving the net to the other side of the boat would be a good solution; they just did it. And the rest, as they say, is history: 153 fish in a net that should have torn under the weight of so many but didn’t. Even stopping right there in the story gives a great deal of food for thought.

Something different for our reflection today can be found perhaps in Logion 8 from the Gospel of Thomas, probably the most commonly known text from the Nag Hammadi codex – the treasure trove of manuscripts found in the Egyptian desert in 1945, a Coptic version of what may be some of the earliest teachings of Jesus. This gospel is comprised of 114 sayings (logia) of Jesus and, while at least two-thirds of them overlap the four canonical gospels, some give a different twist to the message Jesus was hoping to impart. Such a message is contained in Logion 8.

Yeshua says, “A true human being can be compared to a wise fisherman who casts his net into the sea and draws it up from below full of small fish. Hidden among them is one large, exceptional fish that he seizes immediately, throwing back all the rest without a second thought. Whoever has ears, let them understand this.

Reflection on both versions of what has been written above might deepen our comprehension of what Jesus was trying to teach his disciples regarding the mission that was now theirs. What new thoughts come to you from these words or your Spirit-filled silence in their presence?

 

 

 

 

 

Two in One

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divisions, duality, Gospel of Thomas, Jan Phillips, No Ordinary Time, one, opposites, separate, spring, tension, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unitive consciousness, variety of solutions, Western society

All during this week in a great variety of circumstances I have been engaged in conversations about unitive consciousness: the effort needed to grow in the realization that ultimately “we are all one.” I began this week by writing about it. I sat with people in individual spiritual direction considering practices that help us to move toward it. I participated in a study group on the Gospel of Thomas (logion 22) that considered the dual roles of effort and the energy of inspiration in pursuit of it. And yesterday in the midst of my scheduled day I spent an hour outside breathing in the peace and loveliness of a perfect spring day to remember the possibility of it.

None of these events took away the consciousness that there are deep divisions in our society and in nations around the world as well as in the personal lives of everyone I know – including myself. If, however, I maintain the hope that ultimate unity is the achievable goal, I am able at some fleeting moments to sense it within the distress and sometimes even the chaos of separation. I call on No Ordinary Time for some words of Jan Phillips and those “lights” on whom she depends to give credence to my own thoughts this morning. Listen:

If we can stay with the tension of opposites long enough – sustain it, be true to it – we can sometimes become vessels within which the divine opposites come together and give birth to a new reality. (Marie Louise von Franz (1915-1998)

Can you evolve your own thinking process beyond duality, beyond “right and wrong,” beyond “good and evil?” Can you accept that we are all right, only partly so? That we need to mix our thoughts up with others to come up with the greatest variety of solutions, the highest synthesis of consciousness? (Jan Phillips)

We grow up in a world that keeps things separate/Science is a thousand miles from faith/The right wing and the left are far divided/Though the angel cannot fly without them both. (Jan Phillips)

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. (F. Scott Fitzgerald) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wait For It…

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children of God, church, Gospel of Thomas, Luke, Pope Francis, Romans, something is happening, spirituality, St. Augustine, St. Paul, suffering, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton

In conversations lately about spirituality or Church, I have often heard – and occasionally said myself, “It feels like something is happening…” That’s a rather bland statement that is generally followed, however, by examples of an energy that cannot be easily explained but is felt as a growing thing – where people are gathering to discuss the newly recognized convergences of science and spirituality or a discovery of something Thomas Merton said 50 years ago that now makes sense or an exploration of the Gospel of Thomas…It is the same hopeful sense that St. Augustine had almost 2,000 years ago, that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. Wanting to participate in that nearness of God is likely what drew millions of people to the streets to see Pope Francis pass by in Washington, DC and New York City and Philadelphia. It touched people in the Congress, the United Nations Assembly and the families chosen to represent us in Philadelphia. It brought tears to the eyes of people watching those events on television as surely as if the Pope were in their living rooms. Clearly we want more of God in our lives and in our world.

This is the same arising that I think Paul knew when he said to the Romans and to us this morning,  “I consider the sufferings of the present time are as nothing compared to the glory to be revealed for us. For creation waits with eager expectation for the revelation of the children of God.” (ROM 8:18-25) I am disappointed in that text which used to say that “all of creation stands on tiptoe to see the children of God coming into their own.” Jesus knew it could happen – this bursting forth of the Kingdom of God in the world – when he compared it to a mustard seed or yeast, small and imperceptible at first but in the end the largest of all the trees or the impetus for the dough to rise to full capacity. (LK 13:18-21) Where are we now? How close to the revelation of God in our time? What are we doing to “bring it on?” Have we forgotten how to be so eager as to stand on tiptoe to see it revealed?