There is an allegory. I’m not sure the source but it is attributed to a few people, from a 13th century Buddhist to American writer David Foster Wallace. It goes something like this:
“There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, ‘What the hell is water?’”
Sometimes we are so close to something, so intimately connected to it that we don’t even know it is there. Becoming a mature human is the process of becoming aware of ourselves and the water we swim in. Becoming a mature Christian is the process of becoming aware of ourselves and God and the connection we have with God that is so intimate, so close, so intertwined with everything that most of the time we miss it.
This week, in both our scripture readings we are told to “abide” in God’s love. “Abide in me as I abide in you.” Immerse ourselves in it. 1st John says, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and this love is perfected in us.”
I don’t know anything about perfection, but I wholeheartedly believe that God’s love resides in every person. Sometimes that love is obscured by many things: suffering, selfishness, wealth, fear, but it is there, woven right in to the fabric. We “swim” in it all the time. It is up to us whether we will open our eyes, hearts and minds to see it.
See you Sunday for another “Immersion” into the love that is with us all the time.
Will
