LAUNCH OUT INTO THE DEEP AND LET DOWN YOUR NETS...






Our comfort zones, often, become our prisons… We remain confined to the boundaries of our prisons. Like that proverbial ship, which is safe in the harbor, we all feel extremely safe in our comfort zones… where the water is shallow and the risk is almost zero. But then, just as how ships look glorious only when they leave the shores and sail into the deep and restless seas, we all look glorious only when we muster our courage and make our voyages of faith… Yes, there is risk and uncertainty out there… but unless we trust, unless we plunge, the voyage can never take place… The New World will remain undiscovered!

I am very much alive to this familiar fear that holds us all back at the shores… I experience this fear and hesitate to take the plunge… The deep and restless sea, often, frightens me. My past experience is incapable of inspiring in me the faith… Something beyond the past experience can alone fire my soul with faith and courage!

There is this episode in the New Testament. One early morning, Jesus sees Simon Peter and others, who were fishermen, washing their fishing nets. Their boats look empty and their faces look fallen. Jesus gets into Simon’s boat and tells them, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

“What! Are you crazy?” Yes, this is how Simon and others seem to react to what Jesus has just said. “We have been working all night long and there nothing out there.”

Well, Jesus was not a fisherman and he had no experience of the sea or fishing work. Simon and others were fishermen and their experience had confined them to the shore… The boats were pulled out of the waters and the nets were washed… “There was nothing out here… No hope… No fish.” Jesus did not operate from the position of his experience… He operated from the position of faith… trust… He knew, that, for a rich catch, the fishermen had to leave the shores and launch into the ‘deep’… They had to have faith, take risk… and let down their nets…

And the story goes this way: because Simon Peter and his brothers chose to override their own past experience and trust in the voice of the Master, they were able to fill their boats with an unbelievable catch!

It is this miracle of Jesus that made Simon Peter his steadfast disciple… “From now on, I will teach you how to fish men and women,” Jesus had promised Peter – the ‘Rock’… upon whom He had raised His Church – the worldly mission.

Whenever fear holds me back on shallow shores of my comfort zone, and when my boat looks empty and my face looks fallen… yes, in such times, I revisit this Biblical story… I hear Jesus’ gentle command:
“Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

GERALD D’CUNHA
Pic.: Azriel D'Souza




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MUTHU KODI KAWARI HADA

Image
Pic.; Ashwin Mohta M y Hindi was always bad. It still is. One reason for this was, that they introduced Hindi for us only in 6 th standard. Or, was it in 8 th ? I don’t remember… I only remember struggling to write and read… leave alone speak! But, I loved Hindi movies, and, strangely, I could understand the dialogues and the lyrics of the songs… I used to sing those songs (of course when no one was around me!) as if I was the lyricist… One of the songs was a very funny one. ‘Muthu Kodi Kawari Hada’. It was from Mehmood’s super-hit comedy – ‘Do Phool’. I was a 15-year-old high-school boy when I had heard that song (not watched the movie). I could grasp the meaning of two words – ‘Muthu Kodi’… which meant ‘Give kiss’… But, what ‘Kawari Hada’ meant, I have no clue till date! It was just like ‘Why this kolaveri di’... Yes, why ask? Simply enjoy the beats… And, the beats are great… The rest... Who cares? Really! So, whatever bit of Hi...
Read more

SELLING MIRRORS IN THE CITY OF THE BLIND

Image
“I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. I laugh when I hear that people go on pilgrimage to find God.” - Kabir T here is a universal human weakness – and it dates back to the days of fallen civilizations – and it is: to place people on pedestal and trying to be smothered by them, feel loved and protected in their company… worship them as mentors, heroes,  gurus, Mahagurus and Satgurus… Make these mortals larger-than-life cut-outs, worship them as flawless, pure and give one’s all… And, then, ‘take’ everything from them blindly as divine… Give everything to them blindly… Eventually, what happens is:  one more dangerous bondage… What was supposed to free you now becomes a new prison… It’s sad to see this happen! T his room, where I am writing this Post, has no image of any deity. I have no image of any Guru or Master around me… My question is: “Am I not able to feel close to Almighty God?  How ...
Read more

"HAPPILY EVER AFTER IS NOT A FAIRY-TALE... IT IS A CHOICE"

Image
“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone… It has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” – Ursula K. Le Guin,  The Lathe of Heaven T welve years ago, when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie got married, the world began to hail the couple as ‘Brangelina’. It became a fashion for couples around us to call themselves so… Norbert and Teresa renamed them as ‘Noresa’…  Amol and Vishaka baptized their relationship as ‘Amoshka’… and, Salman and Nargis became ‘Salgis’! I and my wife, too, got tempted to re-christian our matrimonial relationship as ‘Germa’... That is, Gerald and Anima, to be precise! B efore I proceed any further, let me make it very clear, here… that, I have no business to judge on the break-up of Brad Pitt and Angelina’ Jolie’s marriage. I have no inclination to go into why, how, what when etc behind it… The couple ‘chose’ to split. And, it’s their choice… Only they know how good or bad… how joyful or pain...
Read more
THE WILD, WAYSIDE FLOWERS
There is, always, something extra-ordinary in the wild, wayside flowers...