Sweet Jesus, talking

his melancholy madness,

stood up in the boat

and the sea lay down,

 

silky and sorry.

So everybody was saved

that night.

But you know how it is

 

when something

different crosses

the threshold – the uncles

mutter together,

 

the women walk away,

the young brother begins

to  sharpen his knife.

Nobody knows what the soul is.

 

It comes and goes

like the wind over the water –

sometimes, for days,

you don’t think of it.

 

Maybe, after the sermon,

after the multitude was fed,

one or two of them felt

the soul slip forth

 

like a tremor of pure sunlight,

before exhaustion,

that want to swallow everything,

gripped their bones and left them

 

miserable and sleepy,

as they are  now, forgetting

how the wind tore at the sails

before he rose and talked to it –

 

tender and luminous and demanding

as he always was –

a thousand time more frightening

than the killer sea.

Mary Oliver (1935 – 2019)

Crises appear in our lives like the sudden storms at sea. Then our prayers and lamentations rise to heaven for relief, for help, for a miracle. And yet, when the miracle comes and storm subsides, “when something different crosses the threshold – the uncles mutter, the women walk away, the young brother begins to sharpen his knife.” What powerful images of fear.

When the Unknown is experienced and our accepted view of reality is challenged we don’t know what to make of it, and we seek the refuge of sleep, the un-awakened state. Better to face the killer sea than the numinous and divine.

This reminds me of the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain, and of Moses with the Burning Bush. Our earthly eyes and minds are overwhelmed by the Awe-full and turn away once our prayers are answered.