The Gardener has not abandoned the garden.
The Carpenter has not discarded the wood.
God can breathe through hollow places
and awaken life within what appears dead.
Therefore, as I encounter others
wounded by their own hurricanes,
broken, soiled and carrying the strong, sweaty odour
of long journeys through difficult seas
Can I receive them without judgement?
Can I sit beside them in the cramped boat?
Can I embrace them as Christ embraced me
when I arrived exhausted and unwashed?
Can I recognise beneath their roughness
the same belovedness God revealed in me?
Can I see beauty and brokenness coexisting
without rejecting either?
This, too, is deep-sea fishing:
not capturing people as trophies,
but drawing near to those submerged in pain
and helping them rediscover their breath.
Yet I must remember
that I am not the Saviour of the boat.
I cannot spend myself without limit
and call my exhaustion faithfulness.
I must guard the rhythms of grace,
time for labour and time for stillness,
time among the nets and time alone with God,
time to sail and time to return to shore.
I must notice when my inner waters recede,
when the garden needs fallowing,
when the nets need mending,
and when my body asks for rest.
The One who sends me on mission
also commands me to care for the missionary.
The One who says, “Put out into the deep,”
also says, “Come away and rest awhile.”
So I return to ministry
not leaving the retreat behind,
but carrying its graces within me:
the embrace of the Father,
the gaze of Jesus,
the Breath that awakened dry bones,
the Sunlight breaking through clouds,
the garden, still beautiful in its brokenness,
the new clothing laid upon my nakedness,
the laughter of family and friends,
and the healing waters of the seashore.
These must become ground provisions for the voyage.
And when the Caribbean Sea grows rough, rugged and rippling,
when the horizon vanishes beneath dark, stormy clouds
and the boat groans beneath the waves,
I must sharpen the sacred art of discernment,
listening beneath the noise,
noticing consolation and desolation,
testing the direction of the winds
and finding God in all things:
in the wave and in the stillness,
in cooperation and in conflict,
in welcome and in resistance,
in success and apparent failure,
in the companion beside me,
in the stranger pulled from the water,
in the storm that exposes my weakness,
and in the grace that keeps the boat afloat.
The shore now recedes behind me.
The deep opens before me.
My hands tremble, yet they reach for the nets.
My heart is anxious, yet it remains hopeful.
I enter the boat as one beloved,
renewed yet still dependent,
clothed yet still vulnerable,
sent yet never sent alone.
Jesus remains within the boat.
Therefore, let the sails be raised.
Let the cove release us.
Let us pass beyond the reef
and set out once more into the deep.
The sea is uncertain,
the mission demanding,
the harvest hidden beneath the waters,
but the One who calls
is already there.
