Reflection: Blessing the Nets

Here’s a beautiful reflection on Jesus’s call to the fishermen: Simon, Andrew, James and John (Mark 1:14-20, Matthew 4:18-22).  It was written by Jan Richardson, and posted on the painted prayerbook.

Blessing the Nets

You could cast it
in your sleep,
its familiar arc
embedded in your
muscle memory
after months
years
a lifetime
of gathering in
what you thought
would sustain you
forever.

You would not
have imagined
it would be so easy
to cast aside,
would never have believed
the immediacy
with which your hands
could release their
familiar grip,
could let it go,
could let it simply continue
its arcing path
away from you.

But when the call came
you did not hesitate,
did not pause,
did not delay
to follow,

as if your body
had suddenly remembered
the final curve
of the arc,

as if the release
begun in your hands
now passed through you
entirely
and you let go
of everything

to cast yourself
with abandon
upon the waiting
world.

~ written by Jan L. Richardson, and posted on The Painted Prayerbook. http://paintedprayerbook.com/