Water for the Journey. My venture into the scary world of blogging started with that post. (It remains above this as a title page, as I hadn’t learnt to post properly at that stage, but it seemed right to leave it where it was)

I started this year with another adventure. A pilgrimage to Israel.                                          Travelling on my own with a group of unknown others. A journey of encounter, of learning and entering Jesus’ world.

It started with being given a bottle of water. Water for the journey. In a dry and thirsty land where water is precious, water was to be a constant theme. The gift an example of the loving care and kindness from those leading the group,* that continued throughout the trip.

Take a desert, a barren, rocky moonscape of a desert..

and add a few vital drops of water.. and the hidden seeds buried in the hard, dry ground, burst into life.

Before my eyes, I saw a prayerful vision of promise for a church played out for real. Green shoots of potential breaking through in hope. Elsewhere I was to see the miracle of transformation taken much further. Valleys I had last seen as dusty wastes, were now verdant farmland- transfigured by advances in de-salination and irrigation processes. From death to life. The desert come to bloom.

The trip was as much an inner journey as an outer one. Early in the itinerary we were taken out into the Judean desert, (where Jesus faced down forty days of temptations at the very start of his ministry)and left to scatter to places of isolation for an hour of interior travel. Sitting in silent solitude was a deep balm. People-filled weeks of frenetic pace dropped away. I could have stayed much, much longer and initially found it hard to return to company and conversation. The Gospels often record Jesus stealing away to ‘lonely places’ for time out with his Father, a life-line undergirding his ministry.

Staying right beside the Sea of Galilee, was an equal balm. Early morning walks by the lakeside as dawn was breaking or watching the sun setting were a gentle counterpoint to days filled with multiple impressions, stimuli and thought provoking information.

Galilee is, if anything less populated than it was in Jesus’ day, and the vistas of hills and lake are immensely evocative of the world he knew and loved. Hard to describe, it feels a very ‘thin place’ where the veil between earth and heaven becomes transparent. Contemporary poet Sharlande Sledge describes the Celtic idea of ‘Thin Place’

'Thin places', the Celts call this space
both seen and unseen,
where the door between this world
and the next is cracked open for a moment
and the light is not all on the other side.
God shaped space. Holy.

I may not visit this shore again within my life time, but it is somewhere I can return to again and again in imaginative prayer. Water for the journey. Water for life.

At a major turning point in his ministry, as Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem and all that awaited him there, he travelled with his disciples to Caesarea Philippi. Luke records him as ‘praying privately’. The source of the Jordan gushes out of the foot of Mount Hermon, very close to this spot, and it is possible to walk beside its roaring waterfalls and rushing waters. It would have been an obvious place to choose for private prayer.

Our guide had us walk beside the water in silence, then pause to hear Psalm 42.

A Psalm written in this ancient landscape. A Psalm echoing perhaps, Jesus’ mood at this point of crucial transition. He goes on to describe his coming suffering to his bewildered disciples.

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls. All your waves and breakers have swept over me.. 

A vivid, lasting memory of a much earlier visit to Israel, had been standing under the gushing force of these very falls. (This is no longer permitted) The Psalmist’s words echo my own spiritual experiences. Sometimes God is found in gentle stillness. At other times, encounters with the Almighty feel like being swept off your feet in an unstoppable torrent. 

Thirst. The Psalmist describes himself as having a ‘thirsty soul’. I need a thirsty soul. A deep and constant longing for the only water that can satisfy. 

The underground stream that never fails, even in the harshest drought. 

Late one afternoon, we boarded a boat to cross the Sea of Galilee. To experience for ourselves a journey Jesus would have made many times. It was to prove an intense crossing for me. I think I cried for most of it. Early in my journey towards ordination, I had written a poem on the various calls on Peter’s life, as they resonated so deeply with my own. I used the poem Called to fish, shaped to serve in the presentation I had to give at the three day residential interview for the priesthood.  My own words now came back to me forcibly. ‘Stepped out of all he knew’ – Jesus’ invitation to Peter to step out of the boat..onto the deep. It seems God is always calling me to step out. Out of comfort zones and known territory. Into a place of overwhelming dependence. 

Deep calls to deep.

* www.michaelcard.com