"On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’   And they were filled with great awe   and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’" Mark 4:35-41 Awe is a very important word in Christianity. It is the human response to God’s divine acts; it is even God’s reaction to divine creativity; and as such it evokes and focuses human response ability. ‘And awe came upon them all

  Awe is a very important word in Christianity. It is the human response to God’s divine acts; it is even God’s reaction to divine creativity; and as such it evokes and focuses human response ability. ‘And awe came upon them all’ is the phrase which describes the response when the Holy Spirit breathed the Word of God upon all gathered after the resurrection on Pentecost. Specifically, the cacophony of tongues created a confusion which was also a cosmic witness to that which surrounded, inspired and bound all humanity.   And today in Mark’s gospel in the calming of the stormy sea, not a confusion of language so much as a chaos of survival dimensions was calmed by the Peace which passes understanding. And awe came upon everyone.   I am fascinated by awe. It strikes me as the response whenever even the tiniest sliver of holiness is revealed in the world shrouded in darkness and anxiety, violence and injustice.   Awe is the response to unexpected mercy, to beauty peeking through clouds, to

  On the Parable of the Mustard Seed Who ever saw the mustard-plant, wayside weed or tended crop, grow tall as a shrub, let alone a tree, a treeful of shade and nests and songs? Acres of yellow, not a bird of the air in sight. No, He who knew the west wind brings the rain, the south wind thunder, who walked the field-paths running His hand along wheatstems to glean those intimate milky kernels, good to break on the tongue, was talking of miracle, the seed within us, so small we take it for worthless, a mustard-seed, dust, nothing.                    Glib generations mistake the metaphor, not looking at fields and trees, not noticing paradox. Mountains remain unmoved. Faith is rare, He must have been saying, prodigious, unique — one infinitesimal grain divided like loaves and fishes, as if  from a mustard-seed a great shade-tree grew. That rare, that strange: the kingdom                          a tree. The soul a bird. A great concourse of birds at home there, wings among yellow flower