Jeweled Breadcrumb #34 : fishing for new possibilities one person at a time
“What do you do when it seems that all is lost, when you have fished all day and have not caught a single fish?”
The early morning drive through a cinnamon and sugar striped canyon, across miles of chamisa dotted grazing land speckled with lazy black bulls and sleeping ponies, catching sparks of the snaking silver Rio Chama, finally cresting a mesa to the spectacle of rugged mountains slicing fairy clouds with their snowy peaks was “good Church” for me. Cradled in the still beauty of the long, silent drive I forget the deep troubles rumbling across the country, the globe, in my soul. This was yesterday morning. I was on my way to serve as priest at a small church in Northern New Mexico.
But, a minion of people, God’s beautiful people, gathered in their tidy wooden church had not forgotten the world’s rumblings. Purple circles beneath her pale eyes testify to one woman’s words, “I lie awake in the middle of the night, afraid of what is happening in our world. I am so alone and so afraid.” Another speaks up, “Me too. I keep seeing in my mind pictures of people suffering, people everywhere not getting the help they need. Regular people. What is going to happen to us?” And another, “I feel helpless, powerless.”
All of this came pouring out when, in the midst of my sermon about Simon Peter who, after a fruitless day of fishing decides to break away from his routine, set aside what he thinks he knows about fishing to follow Jesus, I ask the people, “What do you do when is seems that all is lost, when you have fished all day and have not caught a single fish?”
Another woman adds, “ Here we are in this tiny town. We have no power. What can we do? The problems are too big. I cannot do anything.” I query, “So, do we just give up? Keep our heads down, maintain our status quo routines? Will that help us stop fretting? sleep through the night? be at peace?”
Silence. Not the pastoral silence of my morning drive. The edgy silence of fretfulness saturating the air. I venture, “What was the turning point for Peter?” One of the two men present replies, “He did what Jesus asked him, and put his nets back in the water.” When I wonder aloud, “Did Jesus have a plan to solve world hunger?” a shaky kind of laughter follows, “No.” “Did Jesus ever have an agenda, program or strategy for how to fix the terrible troubles of hunger, disease, wealth and status disparity that rumbled throughout his world?” “I don’t think so.”
I agree. Jesus got up every morning, prayed, went about the business of his day, offering compassion to whomever he met along the way. One person at a time. One touch of compassion; bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty, comfort for the suffering. “What if we really decide to follow Jesus? What if we decide to set aside what we think we know (the problems in our country and the world are too big to be solved or who am I to do this?) and instead, began every morning with a prayer expressing our desire to be more like Jesus, listening to our disgruntled friend, smiling at the harried clerk, welcoming the grumpy neighbor, comforting someone who is suffering, encouraging one another?”
The woman who said, “I am so alone, so afraid,” blurted out, “Then I wouldn’t feel so alone. This is something I can do.” And another, “We begin right here with each other. Then maybe all of our town.” The woman who initially claimed powerlessness added, “Imagine if people did this all over the world! People taking care of one another. This is what we did during World War II.” Whereupon I almost cried and said, “Thank you all for preaching a sermon filled with hope and the possibility of new and abundant life. Now let’s be it.”
Breadcrumb
“Imagine if people did this all over the world. People taking care of one another. This is what we did during World War II.”
Thank you for reading these words, created by grace and the grit of a real human being. Debra Asis
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The assignment that brings me to the writing of these words is to unapologetically tell the story of how God nudges, cajoles, drop kicks and masters me to be the real human being that I am … becoming … following God’s Jeweled Breadcrumbs. My daily writing challenge for 2025 is to share the Breadcrumbs with you.
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