The Circle of the Way: Reading the Gospel of Thomas as a ChristZen Text

Cross Currents, Wntr, 2002 by Kenneth Arnold

But if I seek only to catch a trout I will be disappointed. When I pull the flipping, gorgeous living thing from the water, I will not be as happy as I was when the trout was on my hook and the rod in my hand was throbbing. I will not be as happy as I was when the trout leapt out of the water and tailwalked across the stream spraying rainbows. What I find troubles me because it is more beautiful than I could have imagined and has nothing to do with me. It is beyond me already even though I hold the trout in my hands.

I am troubled because I do not understand my longing, my need.

It has been more than a year since I last went fishing. Not so long ago, I was in a stream every week. One fish was never enough. One hour was never enough. I wanted to be troubled by the fish that lay beside the rock at the head of the Bridge Pool. I caught my first fish there -- a Rainbow that rose to my Mayfly as naturally as Jesus from the dead. It was a miracle and yet wholly right. But then I was troubled because there might not be another. Is there only one resurrection, one return? And if so, what of me and my future? How do these troublesome thoughts lead to my ruling over anything? I cannot rule over my own emotions, my own thoughts.

But then I think of myself as the trout swaying in the current beside the rock. When the Mayfly drifts over, I marvel at its presence, at its intricate construction, and I think that I know what I am about to eat. This is nourishment and so I rise to it, hanging back a moment to be sure, and then take it in my mouth. The hook stings and I am suddenly airborne, a fish out of water, and then in someone's hands (which burn because they are so hot). I look up at this expectant creature and see only disappointment and grief. I marvel then because in fact I rule over him and all of his tools because he wants me and cannot have me, even now when there is a hook in my mouth and I am gasping for life.

The seeker who has nothing to find will find it, and what is found will be opened and the seeker will be inside.

Verse:

Here I wait for myself to arrive, like a child in hiding from the other children who feel the dark coming on and their mothers on the edge of the world, behind screen doors, about to step out and call them home. But I am still and marvel.

22

Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his disciples, "These nursing babies are like those who enter the (Father's) kingdom."

They said to him. "Then shall we enter the (Father's) kingdom as babies?"

Jesus said to them, "When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, afoot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom]."

Commentary:

When he talks to the disciples, it is sometimes like two different species trying to communicate. He speaks in poetry, they answer in prose. He says, "babies," and they think he means "babies." They see babies nursing, and he sees babies nursing.