Loaves and Fishes...

Do you know the story of Jesus feeding the crowd of five thousand believers, seekers, skeptics, and curious onlookers who gathered to hear him speak and teach? At the end of the long day, as the disciples were trying to send everyone home, Jesus stepped in..these people were tired and hungry. "But we only have five loaves of bread and two fishes, barely enough for ourselves," the disciples argued. "How can we feed all these people without going hungry ourselves?" Jesus asked to be given what they had...then he looked up into Heaven, offered thanks, blessed the food, and gave it back to the disciples to distribute. As if by some miracle, after everyone had finished eating as much as they wanted, twelve baskets of leftovers remained.
I love this story because it completely illustrates the power of thankfulness, praise, and..at the root of it...having enough. The gospels of Matthew and Mark report that Jesus performed this miracle not once..but twice. On the second occasion, four thousand people were fed with seven loaves and only a few fishes. By this time, Jesus was stirring things up..and the increasingly threatened high priests were demanding more and more signs of his divinity. Jesus dismissed many of their taunts and walked away..warning his disciples to "beware of the yeast of the Pharisees" (which I think was a biblical way of saying hot air!). But, disciples being mere unbelieving men..took Jesus' warning literally, bought no local bread, and chose to eat when they arrived at the next town.
Many hours later, they found themselves crossing the lake in a boat. Because they had not eaten (due to the 'yeast' being tainted), they began complaining...asking "What will we do? How will we eat?" Jesus, clearly frustrated at their failure to fully grasp His message, began admonishing them "You of little faith..why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don't you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, or the seven loaves for the four thousand? And how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread?...Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?"
This is great stuff because the delicious moral of the story is that the apostles just didn't get it. Miracle after miracle kept occurring right in front of them..but they didn't see what was going on. That's because they were ordinary human beings...even if their life lessons were being given by a Master. It still wasn't enough because they needed to personally experience an inner shift in reality.
The same thing happens for me. How often in my life, do I still not get it? The "it" could be any number of things...the power struggle going on in my relationship, my blossoming career undermining my self-esteem, the deterioration of my health and mental well being, the continuing legal and emotional drama that shakes our foundation, or any of the other unconscious forms of self-sabotage that have me bouncing from one self-inflicted crisis to another. The "it" doesn't really matter. Something is always happening in my life..and will continue..again and again and again..until the moment I begin to see the pattern, until the moment I start paying attention.
When I don't get it, it's usually because I can't interpret the outcome. I can't see the bigger picture. What's really happening in my outward life is somehow taking place internally in a language I don't understand. So I assume that the outward is reality (which it often times isn't), or I doom myself to keep repeating the experience until it starts to sink in and make sense. It's kind of like learning a foreign language by moving to another country. The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay put it this way.."It's not true that life is one damn thing after another-it's one damn thing over and over."
Today I would like for all the foreign languages to become native. The language of the heart is longing, the language of the mind is rationalizing, and the language of emotions is feeling. Today I would love to get it finally. To not focus on what I don't have, but to be grateful for what I do. To accept, give thanks, bless, and share. To not hoard or hold back for fear that there won't be enough. There will be. Miracles lack for nothing.
As long as I have a few loaves and fishes, and know what to do with them, all I have is all I need.

XOX