Holy water.

Religion and spirituality has held the reputation of being about faith, mystery, that which we cannot see or understand. Yet, in the religion that I was born into, Christianity, (more specifically the American Evangelical Church), has not been a place to welcome those true mysterious and liminal spaces to be experienced. Sure, they can talk about it, as it relates to one story, from one book, about one man. And, from one perspective, one interpretation and one belief system. But, to actually welcome true faith, and to be open to those mysterious space within ourselves or within our actual reality, felt as if it was not welcome. These are spaces where there are more questions than answers, where there may not be a specific right or wrong and where binary thinking doesn’t actually fit. These are spaces where you can actually communicate with those who have long been gone from their physical body, or where you can tap into an intuition, a frequency, an unseen reality. Also, these are spaces where the soul is called forth, and you know something, but you don’t know how you know it. These are spaces that can break the boundaries of this physical world and where deep transformation happens.

It reminds me of the story about Jesus walking on water. What does it mean that Jesus walked on water? This ancient story, where this teacher was able to know that his disciples were struggling without him being there, and walked one the water, across a lake, to them. Frankly, it’s a bizarre story and a seemingly impossible one. When I was taught this story, the strangeness wasn’t ever addressed. It was about fact. Since Jesus was God, He could do miracles. And, like most who were born into this tradition, I didn’t question it, not because I didn’t want to. Actually, I was told not to because I didn’t need to (why ask questions when you have already been told the answer). Which, then turned into a place where I was afraid to to ask the questions that so naturally arise from all of us. There are many reason that I left that form of Christianity. And that certainty was a large reason I can no longer claim that tradition of Christianity as my own. I needed to be able to ask questions, use my imagination and be open to wonder, to possibilities, and to expand my story of faith and mystery.

As I have become more comfortable with questions, holding tension, and mystery, I actually can enter into this story in a new way. What was the purpose of the miracle that Jesus is doing? He’s not healing an illness, or raising anyone from the dead. He’s just walking on water. One answer that was told to me growing up was that Jesus was displaying his Divinity so others would believe he was God. And, i think part of that actually could be true, but I don’t know. This story leaves me with a lot more questions than actual answers. It leaves me with wonder. I wonder if Jesus understood deeply who he was and that he was from the very seed of God. I wonder if Jesus also understood what the water was. I wonder if he understood that the water was just as much a part of Divine creation, as he was. I wonder if he saw the water as nourishment, as a holy body, as a part of himself where they could exist in wholeness and complete acknowledgement of the holy within each other. I wonder if he trusted the water, and asked the water to hold him. Not for others to believe, but for his own belief.

It seems that religion, at least the tradition of Christianity that I came from, has taught their followers that these stories are about one way to access the Divine. Through adhering to systemic, patriarchal and cultural interpretation of this ancient story. And literally taking the mystery out of it. By not acknowledging the strangeness, not wrestling with the mystery, and answering the meaning of each story with a single narrative, it becomes a story that is controlled and has power over. It seems that in knowing the answer or the one true meaning of this ancient beautiful story, removes what it actually takes to have faith…a NOT knowing, an open heartedness, a longing for possibility.

As I have found welcoming spaces to be able to be honest, and not afraid to question these interpretations that were so much apart of my understanding of God, I have returned to these stories of Jesus with new eyes. I am beginning to notice that Jesus actually rarely displayed power over, but showed up alongside, within, and around. Now when I read this story, this no longer gives me a picture of Jesus being the only Son of God where “even the wind and the waves obey him” as the gospel of Mark states. But I read this as a man deep in communion with the Divine that He was born of, deep in communion with the Divine nature that so graciously held him, and deep in communion with the souls of those disciples that had yet to know and understand how Divine and loved they were. Now, to me, this is a story about Divinity working together, to allow those liminal spaces to take form, and to further deepen the trust, hope and faith we all have access to.