Suzanne Guthrie
“The disciples have been night-fishing, but as dawn breaks they have nothing to show for their efforts. Jesus appears on the shore, too far away to help. He shouts at them to fish differently, to throw their nets on the unconventional side of the boat. That’s where they find what they’re looking for.”
-Richard Beard from the novel, Lazarus is Dead (p.219)
“Is it possible that finding what I’m looking requires just the slightest adjustment in my way of seeing? How can pulling up my net, moving it a few feet over, throwing it back in the same waters, make a difference? And yet…
“What other slight adjustments to my life, my character, my thinking, my relating to family, friends, neighbors, the world, might change barrenness to fecundity? At any given moment there’s probably at least 153 ways to begin.
Do you remember the dynamic between the two disciples running to the tomb on Easter Morning? Mary Magdalene, having found the tomb empty runs to wherever the disciples have been hiding and brings back Peter and John. John outruns Peter but hesitates to go in. When Peter arrives he enters the tomb and sees the disarray of cloths. “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed” (John 20:8).
“John understands. Peter acts.
“Here in the boat, the stranger on the shore calls to the men in the boat. Children, have you caught anything? No? Cast your net on the right side of the boat and you’ll catch some. And they did. And could hardly manage the haul of fish. “The disciple who Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!”
“Peter, who is naked, throws on his clothes and jumps into the water to swim toward shore, leaving the others to manage the miraculous catch of fish.
“John understands. Peter acts.
“When I act first, perhaps I need to understand more. When I understand and fail to act, well, that’s another adjustment I need to make.”