And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” Luke 5:4-5
They say a fish is the least able to understand water.
But suddenly, you do.
Life so far: cool/warm, fright/flight, gulp-shimmy-splash. Out/in, spinning fin; up/down, whip around. Eyes flick, tail ticks, that’s it!
Until
the light comes.
A seawashed brightness streams electrically along your scaly side. Muscles flex with the unsuspected pleasure of you. One could leap; one does. Aimed like an arrow toward the sparkle-green surface, a powerful tailkick thrusts you into the light—pure fire, live energy, too rare to breathe, but oh! A twist and a tumble, a silvery flex in the air, a cunning flick of tail—
A salute!
You slide into the element—water—cool and welcoming, stroking your sides with loving attention. Ancient echoes:
Let the waters swarm . . .
It is good . . .
Be fruitful . . .
Multiply . . .
Multiplying, you swarm. Scales, fins, tails, eager golden eyes bogle all around. All hungry, not for food. All desperate, not for escape. Lead us, bring us, take us!
From the long-ago echo to the right-now call: a voice from Outside, from light itself, heard not by ear but by being. The voice that calls us to ourselves, the voice that all our brief lives we have longed to hear and with all ourselves respond: Lead us, bring us, take us!
Like a single fist of longing, charging the net, crowding in as much as it can hold, leaving a few desolate slivers outside: Lead us, bring us, take us! Milling, squeezing, rising, striving, breaking the water at last, at last, to spill upon the hot splintered surface of sunrise near his feet.
Flopping, flipping, meeting our meet, gasping in ecstasy—
The boards shudder as a pair of knees hit the deck and pour out a lament with only one word we understand:
LORD
But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” . . . . And Jesus said, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”
When the boat reaches land, other hands pull it to shore and gather the bulging nets. Two hundred pairs–at least!–of visionstruck eyes gaze steadily, while a handful of sinful men gather a few belongings and kiss their startled wives and follow the light, headed for the greatest fishing expedition ever.
For the first in this series, go here.
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