Rest a while

Earthquakes and fires are great news items. Both visual and written news stations provide up-to-date coverage of these events.

As I write, parts of Europe, notably France and Spain, are working to control major fires.

Similarly, earthquake recovery efforts are underway in Venezuela and Japan.

At times, family and community stories include a fire and/or an earthquake. The Ballantyne Department Store fire of 1947 forms part of the story of the city and people of Christchurch.

So too do the major earthquakes that struck that city in September 2010 and February 2011. The consequences of, and recovery from, such events take time for individuals and communities alike.

Both earthquakes and fires are also noisy. So is a very strong wind.

An event known by many as “the Wahine Disaster” involved the sinking of an inter-island ferry in April 1968. The ferry was caught in a violent cyclonic storm and foundered at the entrance to Wellington Harbour. Fifty-three people lost their lives.

Have you ever heard a major news station give coverage of a gentle breeze? Even a weather report ignores such an event.

A gentle breeze happens almost silently, though there may be a little rattle from an unsecured window. An important feature of a gentle breeze is that you can leave your door ajar and your windows open.

This Sunday’s First Reading is taken from the First Book of Kings (19:9, 11–13) and recounts the prophet Elijah’s encounter with his God.

God was not in the mighty wind, nor in the fire, nor in the earthquake. Then came a gentle breeze, and Elijah “covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.”

Unfortunately, our text concludes at that point. What happens next is the important part: God asks Elijah, “What are you doing here?”

All who know the story will know that Elijah has in fact run away and is in hiding. So what does God say? “Go, return.”

The moral of the story is this: when you reckon you have found a safe hiding place and are letting the gentle morning breeze catch your face, be very cautious.

The Gospel this Sunday is from Matthew 14:13–21, and all the Bibles I have read preface the passage with the heading ‘The Feeding of the Five Thousand’. Commentaries and homilies almost invariably focus on this event, which is understandable.

However, our passage describing this ‘feeding’ of many is prefaced by another ‘feeding’ — the feeding of one.

Our passage begins: ‘When Jesus received the news of John the Baptist’s death, he withdrew by boat to a lonely place where he could be by himself.’ (The Bible text I use most often uses the word ‘deserted’ rather than ‘lonely’.)

It invites us to reflect on how we process grief.

The text is accommodating: ‘When Jesus received the news of John the Baptist’s death’ — for goodness’s sake, his cousin had just had his head chopped off!

For all we know, Jesus and John may have played together as children. They may have gone to the same school and been in the same class. Knowing Judaic traditions, they most certainly would have shared meals together.

News of death is received individually, and so is grief.

Even within a family, members attend to their grief in individual ways — ‘our dad’ in life becomes ‘my dad’ in death.

News of another’s death closes a relationship. As each relationship is particular to the two people involved, so too is how its closure is managed.

Grief is as individual as a fingerprint.

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called grief a natural, sacred inner journey.

Jesus’ own journey took him across water: ‘He withdrew by boat to a deserted place where he could be by himself.’

And what happens? He is met by a crowd.

How often this happens in life, around grief. Wanting to be alone, I am met by a crowd — well-meaning, to be sure, but at times intrusive with their presence, their advice, their suggestions, and their counsel.

Grief is as individual as a fingerprint.

“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:45–46)

An oyster spends almost its entire life fixed to a single spot. It opens its shell only to filter food from the water.

For some, oysters are a gourmet delicacy.

But their most extraordinary claim to fame is their ability to produce an exquisite gem. Yet that gem has an unlikely origin.

A pearl begins its life as a parasite, an irritant. It starts when a microscopic parasite drills through the oyster’s shell and settles inside.

To protect itself, the oyster covers the parasite with its mantle. It then secretes layer upon layer of calcium carbonate, known as “nacre”, around the intruder.

Over time, this layering forms a pearl.

That which irritates you most, if you protect it, may become for you the pearl of great price.

Manihiki is a remote coral atoll in the northern Cook Islands, famously known as the “Island of Pearls”. Here, the oysters produce black pearls, formed the same way as any other, through the same irritation.

So, if the irritant in your life turns you black, have no concern, have no fear. You are just as precious, and just as sought after.

Reflecting on the years spent in Stalin’s labour camps, Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote:

“I learnt one great lesson from my years in the prison camps. I learnt how a person becomes evil and how he becomes good.

“Gradually, I came to realise that the line that separates good from evil passes not between states, or between classes, or between political parties, but right through every human heart. Even in hearts that are overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And in the best of all hearts, there remains an unuprooted small corner of evil.” (Gulag Archipelago)

A bridgehead of good, and a small corner of evil.

Many of today’s translations of the Bible ‘distort’ the text to make it easier to read. An example of this is in today’s Gospel (Matt. 13:14–30).

Most translations head this parable ‘Weeds among the Wheat’. That is very polite.

Earlier translations use the word ‘darnel’ rather than weeds.

Darnel is a ‘mimic weed’, neither entirely tame nor quite wild, that looks and behaves so much like wheat that it can’t survive without human help.

Its seeds are stowaways: the plant’s survival strategy requires its seeds to be harvested along with those of domesticated grasses, then stored and replanted the following season.

Darnel occupies a grey area in human agricultural history. It’s definitely not good for us.

When people eat its seeds, they become dizzy, off-balance and nauseous. Its scientific name, L. temulentum, comes from the Latin temulentus, meaning drunken, intoxicated or tipsy.

Bearded darnel grass is pernicious and poisonous to both other plants and humans. It’s also difficult to distinguish from wheat, which was a vital food crop for the Galileans.

Notice the activity of both the farmer and his enemy. The farmer sows the good seed; the enemy doesn’t try to dig it up.

The enemy doesn’t try to burn the field. He doesn’t poison the wheat or steal it.

Instead, the enemy plants darnel — what today is known as ‘false wheat’.

This false wheat looks just like real wheat until it bears seed. By then, though, its roots have surrounded the wheat’s roots and begun sucking up all its nutrients.

Because the roots are so intertwined, pulling out the weed would uproot the wheat as well.

Even though the farmer’s servants want to go and get rid of the weeds, the farmer wisely tells them no. At this point, the two plants can’t be told apart, and even if they could, pulling one up would pull the other with it.

Instead, the farmer suggests they let both grow together until harvest. Then, at harvest time, the weeds can be collected and burned before the wheat is gathered into the barn.

The same soil that nourishes the wheat equally nourishes the weed.

Maybe the story invites me to be courageous — courageous enough to allow the weeds and the wheat to grow together.