Walking on Water

Today's Gospel (actually, one of the options for today's Gospel) is Matthew's account of Jesus--and Peter--walking on water. In my meditation, I prayed various themes from Scripture with this picture in mind: the Exodus (across the sea), Habbakuk's canticle about God making his way through the mighty waters "and no one saw your footprints", and eventually, St. Paul's writings on freedom. Because in some way, this is a narrative about freedom, which calls for a kind of "dying" to certainty, to the good solid feeling of the ground beneath your feet. Peter was free enough to set out, but lost his footing (so to speak) when he became more overly aware of the wind (which was utterly irrelevant, considering that he was walking on the waves). And it wasn't he who reached out to Jesus; it was Jesus who reached out to save him. (I imagine that at that point, Peter's arms were flailing all over the place.)