This week also saw a reading from John 6:16-21. This was another “Imagine yourself in the scene” activity. I get motion sick very easily. I found myself reliving crossing Lake Malawi in a dhow during the rainy season. Some distance from shore, visibility dropped to zero, so the crew stopped the boat in the middle of the lake and waited for the storm to calm. I stayed by the back, drenched through, retching, and struggling just to breathe. The crew and most of my friends huddled under the tarp in the middle of the boat, but crew members were smoking there and I wanted to avoid smoke-induced nausea on top of sesickness.
I imagined the disciples’ crossing was much like my own journey had been. Placing myself in the scene, I was just as seasick as I’d been on Lake Malawi. As a result, if I noticed Jesus at all, I shrugged him off as a hallucination. Likely I did not notice him and was only vaguely aware of the disciples shouting. I probably assumed they were shouting at each other about the storm. They knew how sick I was; they’d likely leave me be until we reached shore.
The activity asked, “How do you feel when you realize you are on the shore?” I was grateful the seasickness passed quickly and I could finally focus on something other than my stomach and esophagus. Of course, by that time Jesus was long gone. Hearing the crew retell it - “How did you miss it?” they asked me - I thought they must have hallucinated. Then I went in search of beer (being generally safer to drink than water) to wash the bile out of my mouth.
The image below is of a Viking longboat made of Delica beads. Read more about it on deviantArt. I made it about 15 years after I spent a semester in Denmark studying Nordic culture and history.
This post is part of my Lent 2025 Imaginative Readings series.
