Doing something Ordinary

Wanna know what doesn’t inspire me?

When someone is good at something just because. Like they are really good.

How long have you been golfing? a year and you’re that good?

How do you keep the fat off of you like that, I ask my friend David. High metabolism. Nice.

I, like the apostles, watch Peter go out on the waves and think, look at him being brave Peter again, walking on water, good for him. But what about me?

Magnus Carlson, why are you so good at chess? I can just see things others don’t. Fantastic.

But what about me? Why am I so average at most things?

I play chess. I’m not that good. But after years of playing, I think I see things now that I didn’t when I was growing up. I have learned a couple of ways to checkmate and have learned a couple of openings. But man its hard to remember all of the spots and the lines that are compromised and dangerous. I’ve gotten better, merely by doing, and failing often at this thing.

First reading - Elijah and the still small voice.

Why would the Church put this first reading with the Gospel? Well, because prayer is the connection. We were meant to walk and converse with God in the garden, remember that.

We like fireworks, explosions, box office hits. We don’t like prayer, reading, conversations with our elders because they are slower and by definition less exciting. But since leaving the garden, it is hard to hear God’s voice, and often times we confuse Satan’s voice, or our own inner voice for God’s.

For example, I don’t recommend going to Casinos, neither myself, because it is precisely loud and exciting. Forget the money, you can’t hear yourself think!

Prayer isn’t exciting…until it is! And so, we must sit in the prayer and let God do the work. One monk said prayer is like panning for gold. You just keep panning, and one day isn’t different from another, nothing happens, just going through heaps and heaps of sand. Except that at some point, for no rhyme or reason, you find gold! Exciting! But you didn’t do anything different, God just decided to make His presence known! and then you go back to the next prayer, more sand…but maybe there’s gonna be gold?! When? Idk, we just keep panning.

Gospel - Peter walks on water

Something about God walking on the water in

Job

New American Bible: Revised Edition Chapter 9

8 He alone stretches out the heavens

and treads upon the back of the sea.

New American Bible: Revised Edition Psalm 69

2 Save me, God,

for the waters have reached my neck.

3 I have sunk into the mire of the deep,

where there is no foothold.

I have gone down to the watery depths;

the flood overwhelms me.

4 I am weary with crying out;

my throat is parched.

My eyes fail,

from looking for my God.

or psalm 89:9 Lord, God of hosts, who is like you?

Mighty Lord, your faithfulness surrounds you.

10 You rule the raging sea;

you still its swelling waves.

New American Bible: Revised Edition Psalm 88

8 Your wrath lies heavy upon me;

all your waves crash over me.

Have you ever felt the power of the ocean and you can’t catch a breath?

And as scary as drowning is, imagine not having a prayer life and being drowned by the world? We think its less scary, but if we drown, we can still go to heaven, if we stop hearing the voice of God, how can we spiritually live and prefer his voice?

When we stop looking at Christ we drown. Similar to the still small voice, if we stop praying we’re dead. When we stop listening to God we sin. We stop walking with him and do something else. We weren’t meant to walk on water. But God does, and he lets us follow him as his children. Miracles still happen. But God does them so we can come back and walk with him.

The water is precisely the anti garden, a garden needs water but not too much.

But God will take a walk on the water together, but we can’t take our eyes off of him. And all of us have. We know what that feeling is. And as we get older, we look back and think, “There! There I stopped looking…and I fell.”

I just want to be good at what I’m supposed to be good at. I want to make good decisions. I want to be disciplined. I want to be a man of prayer. I want to love and to be good to people. I want to walk with God and take your arm and give it to God so that you can walk with him. I don’t want a superpower or even to walk on water or fly. I just want to pray and to be in conversation with God. I just want to be a human being, fully alive. This is what inspires me. Not the idiot savant, or the savant, but the person who encounters trials and trusts in God through them. And this is what the Church specializes in doing, making Saints, which is synonomous with making men and women fully alive.