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A violent squall came up
and waves were breaking over the boat,
so that it was already filling up.
(Mk 4:37)
The Storm on the Lake

Years ago I attended a seminar on religious experience where a woman shared the following story:

A few years before this incident occurred her life had been rather settled. She had been happily married, her children were grown and on their own, and she and her husband were running a successful business together. Then it all fell apart. Her husband, a recovering alcoholic, began to drink. Within two years, they had lost everything, including each other. Their business went bankrupt, they lost their house, and their marriage fell apart. She moved to a new city and took a new job, but the pain of what she had lost lingered and she found herself constantly depressed and joyless as she sought to sink new roots, meet new people, and begin over again in mid-life.

The first Christian creeds had only one line: Jesus is Lord!

Her frustration culminated one evening when, having worked late, she was driving home and stopped for a red light. While waiting for the light to change she was hit from behind by a drunken driver. (The irony wasn’t lost on her.) Her car was badly damaged and she, suffering from whiplash and a series of cuts and bruises, was taken to hospital by ambulance. After several hours of x-rays, examinations, and medical treatment, near midnight, she was released, to be driven home by a policeman. As they drove up to her townhouse she noticed that the front door was wide open. Getting out of the car she realized that her home had been ransacked and vandalized. It was the last straw: all that penned up frustration, anger, loss, and grief finally burst, and she lost control, began to scream hysterically, and ran across the lawn shouting curses at God and life in general—the policeman chasing her.

As she recalled this, she told us that she remembered exactly what was running through her mind as she ran across that lawn at midnight, hysterical, cursing, a policeman giving chase. Her anger and her questions were about God: “Where is God in all of this? Why is God letting this happen? Why is God asleep?”

Then, just as she heard her own curses as an answer, suddenly, in one instant, everything became calm. She ceased running, stopped shouting, because she felt inside of herself a flood of calm and a peace such as she had never experienced before in her life. No magic lights went on, no divine voices were heard, and she made no claims of “miracle” afterwards, but, for one second she realized that, no matter the storm, no matter the loss, and no matter death itself, God is still in charge of this universe. One second of realization was all it took. Calm returned. She sent the policeman home and began cleaning up her house. She has essentially remained in that calm since.

The Synoptic gospels record the story of Jesus calming the waters during a storm on the lake. As Mark has it:

On that day, as evening drew on, Jesus said to his disciples:

  “Let us cross to the other side.”

Leaving the crowd, they took Jesus with them in the boat just as he was.
And other boats were with him.
A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat,
so that it was already filling up.
Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion.
They woke him and said to him,

  “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

He woke up,
rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Quiet!  Be still!”
The wind ceased and there was great calm.
Then he asked them, “Why are you terrified?
Do you not yet have faith?”
They were filled with great awe and said to one another,

  “Who then is this whom even wind and sea obey?” (Mark 4:35-41).

The parallel between these two stories is clear. The deeper lessons contained within them though are perhaps less obvious, at least during the more stormy moments in our lives. In essence, both stories tell us that God is still in charge of this universe, every counter-indication notwithstanding. The first Christian creeds had only one line: Jesus is Lord!

Ultimately that says enough, says it all.

God still rules, even in death and darkness. But, as these stories also make clear, during the stormy moments of life, when our very souls are in fear of drowning, it will seem like God is asleep, comfortable, his head on cushion. But, and this is the real challenge of these stories, calm is only a second of realization away.

What calms the storm in life is not that all of our problems suddenly disappear but that, within them, we realize that, because God is still in charge, all will be well—whiplash, bruises, ransacked houses, alcoholic spouses, lost houses, lost jobs, loneliness, and the shadow of death itself notwithstanding.

All will be well because, even asleep with his head on a cushion, God is still lord.

Ron Rolheiser


Used with permission of the author, Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser. Currently, Father Rolheiser is serving as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio Texas. He can be contacted through his web site, www.ronrolheiser.com.

Art by Martin Erspamer, OSB
from Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (A, B, and C). This art may be reproduced only by parishes who purchase the collection in book or CD-ROM form. For more information go http://www.ltp.org