The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, by Rembrandt
Rolled and rocked
With pitiless persistence,
The waves swell and roll,
A serpent’s back speeding
The crest to its rocky collision
At the border of land’s edge.
The wind effortlessly moving
From wherever it comes from
To wherever it goes (mystery),
Tearing the air with pitched howl
And rearranging things from
Quiet order to violent disorder.
The little boat offers the pretence
Of safety as it floats atop the
Moving everything, the restless flows.
“Head for shore”, comes the cry,
Barely heard as the wind steals sound,
But shore is far off,
And sharp rocks the harbour,
Foamed up and shaved by
The water’s razor’s edge.
Instinct is to turn askew
To face away from the looming
Waves, piled up to heaven,
Spreading their mantle
To hide horizon’s anchor
And narrow the perspective
Into an impending doom.
Seasoned mariners know
That the sea is queen and only
The brave and humble can
Harvest her bounty, or
Traverse her routes and courses,
But in our little boat we are
Baptised into the seafarer’s life
With no induction, no shallow entry.
We know not which way
To pitch or turn, no sail
Or mast but the taut whine
Of an outboard motor –
That has more than met its match –
Is our only hope of steering
To safety… or who knows where?
But turning aside, not facing
The waves brings a crash course
In how to handle choppy seas;
Crashing waves roll us to the limits
Of buoyancy and balance,
Pushing us way off course into
The open sea and away from
Land’s reach and firmer ground.
With naught to lose and
Challenged by fear, we turn
Our little boat face on into the
Mountainous waves.
Each wave blocks out the sky
Yet draws the bow heavenward
Until its almost standing upright,
Before the wave peak passes
And we nosedive down into
The valley beyond.
But as much as the waves
Threaten to overwhelm,
It’s only as we face them head on
That we can safely ride them,
Seeing them through,
Allowing the full wave to pass by
And under – going with the flow
And not fighting the force and power,
But trusting ourselves to the storm,
And the One who makes the wind,
And the waves and the rain.
Now set, facing forward,
A hymn rises up, and the
Voice to sing it out loud rises too,
The water’s surface amplifying
And accelerating the sound
So that even the crashing cymbals
And timpanic booms of the
Sea’s orchestra cannot drown
Out the rising chorus of
Joy unbounding, and peace
Instilling as the crescendo
Hits the climactic moment of
Rhyme and verse and then,
As suddenly as it all started,
The squall subsides and the wind rests,
And what was mayhem is now placidity
And perfect calm; the waves
Faced up to and faced down as
Our fears were too, and our little boat –
So helpless – now finds strength,
And carries us to harbour’s home.
