The Energetic Center of Christ Seated in the Boat
The sacred texts in the Holy Bible bring us centuries of human beings seeking to find their way in conversation with The Divine. From the God called “Elohim” of the Hebrew Bible, to Christ as explained by the apostle Paul, meditation upon the texts brings us to encounter our own spirituality, our “living well”. The encounter provokes us to consider how we might relate to our past, present, future in new ways, allowing old things to die and new things to enter. This process nourishes the fabric of our communal relationships. Everyone who has had experience with the Gospels recognizes Jesus in the boats with the disciples! Consider now an experiential rendition of a day in life with Jesus to provoke and to nourish!
Jesus sat down in the boat with his disciples where a real time dialectic is about to begin. The water is gently lapping the sides of the boats anchored together on the Galilean sea. The coarse rope which binds the netting is coiled in the bottom of the boats. This “energetic center”, the Christ Jesus, calls attention to casting the net into the deep, and so the net is cast, bringing up a great haul of fish. The catch is lowered into the bottom of the boat where the figure of Jesus is centered. The contents of the deck, hauled in by sturdy ropes which bind the netting, are glistening and flipping in the sun, to be inspected by the fishermen under the energetic pull and attention of The Christ. He instructs the listeners in his midst, using the fish as a living focal point. The energy moves to a new center in the process and the experience of gathering these flipping, shining images of sea creatures of the depths.
The living energy shift moves the attention and frame of reference. Now Peter lowers himself to face the knee caps of Jesus, saying “I will follow you wherever you go”. Voluntary humility, not humiliation, is offered to this holding point, the seat of Jesus. The seat of this Christ is an attentive place between one’s conscious understanding, where rules are clear, boundaries and emotional walls are established, and an attentive place which meets mysterious movement and contents of the depths of our spiritual experience. This is where spiritual exploration and dialogue begins!
Monika Wikman describes that we are drawn to the point of tension, regarding our energetic center, often without our own volition, through the onslaught of marital problems, sickness, life’s surprises, twists and turns. (Wikman P. 135-138) We are forced from our tendency to control, according to our perceptions in the light of day, into an experience of the deep, where long forgotten elements of our lives and histories and treasures yet to be discovered flourish. It is exactly our ascribement of attentiveness to the sacred, this conscious interfacing with the mysterious presence of Christ, which offers us enough reassurance of structure in the solid sense of connection to the “rigging and ropes” that hold us as we cast this net which takes us to the depths. The firmly bound rope of trust in this figure of Christ Jesus, who is seated in the midpoint of our awareness and our darkness, assists us to not unravel emotionally or depart from connection with the concrete everyday world in the process of engaging our fears, secrets and wounds and new discoveries.
As we grow in our ability to hold our own conversation with The Mystery, an invitation is then issued from this Christ to become a “fisher” who seeks others who would be companioned and assisted on the journey with the depths. These in their nightmares, their deaths and their hells. With Peter, we have humbled ourselves to the loving guidance of Christ as our center point and we have learned to trust the outcome bathed in knowledge of “what is” attended by love.
Wikman, Monika. Pregnant darkness. Nicolas-Hays, Inc. 2004