Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: TEACH (11/29/18)
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TITLE: Feed My Sheep | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
11/30/18 -
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As night descended, the full moon bounced like a ball off the distant hills and into the inky blackness above. Slowly the blanket of stars covered the land like a quilt. I read them as easily as I read the letters from my friends. They sang of the Creator and lullabied my soul.
Tension had kneaded my muscles into petrified knots and the nickname “Rocky” was bandied about with mock laughter by the others. My calloused hands caressed the ropes and netting of the ship and my bearded face soaked in the wind as if remembering the days when all was peace.
Nate, John and James didn’t hesitate to join this liberating adventure. We were soaking in a reality that none of us could fathom on our own. We’d oriented our whole lives around the dreams of a teacher who had turned our world upside down. Many of our peers thought we’d fallen off the deep end in giving up our financial security and status. It hadn’t taken much thought to march along with someone who seemed so confident, so at ease with life, so fluent in his connection and communication.
Of course, that was before I’d blown it.
I have to admit, I was confident that I had the inside track on figuring out the lessons that we were being taught. I had nodded with the rest of them. I had looked down on those who hadn’t been chosen to take this extra special instruction on what life could accomplish if I followed whole-heartedly.
We must have checked the nets a dozen times. Nothing. I knew the fishing spots and the others looked to me for the next place to cast. Apart from once before I had never had such poor success. The darkness hid my embarrassment at promising pleasure and delivering emptiness.
By dawn we were all done. We’d passed the hours with stories of the great things we’d seen as we learned together. Students honor teachers and we had tried many times to imitate the model. Some days were better than others. The highs carried us through the lows and the rebukes when we couldn’t grasp what we were being taught.
On the shoreline an early bird set down the first footprints before the lapping waves. He watched us carefully as we took one final cast and called it a night. He didn’t seem to be any of the locals we knew. Someone eager for breakfast without having to do the work of catching it himself.
As we pulled in the net he called out, ‘Friends, did you get any fish?”
“No,” we called. It wasn’t the answer people were used to hearing from me.
“Try the right side of the boat and you’ll find some,” the stranger called.
“Easy for him,” one of the others muttered. “If a professional can’t find fish how does he think he can?”
“Just do it,” I said. “We’re heading in anyway.”
When the net pulled taut I feared a snag. “Careful, I said, don’t rip it.”
“It feels like fish,” someone said. “I started to pull in the net and there was no question. The net was alive.”
John tugged on my arm. “It’s the Lord,” he said. “Remember last time this happened?”
I catapulted over the side of the boat and splashed my way to shore. “It’s you. It’s you.”
The others pulled a net filled with 153 fish up onto the shore while the teacher offered us fish he had already baked. We added to his breakfast preparations and feasted like never before.
As I sat, stomach full, heart happy, mind cart-wheeling with wonder, he took up his teaching again with three questions that were darts. “Do you love me more than these?” Over and over.
He knew and that’s all I could say. “Lord, you know.”
Surely, I had disqualified myself from anything he might desire from me but then he gave me those life giving words. “Feed my sheep.”
In my failure I learned a lesson I would never forget. Teaching out of my weakness shows his strength.
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I also love the way that up until the fourth paragraph it seems to be a personal story. Then in the beginning of the fourth paragraphm the reader is wondering, Could it possibly be...."and by the end of the fourth paragraph the reader begins to REALLY get it. Hooked. It's like a flower that keeps blooming more and more.
Great job. I hope you are writing full books in this manner.
Thank you!