And other times, There have been other times I have prayed, and I have sensed a stillness, and I have walked in calm and it is this calmness which the Israelites are urged to move to. This is the heart of sea crossing. A calmness, Did you see what Moses said? You only have to be still You only have to have a silence that is about not lashing out and then to stop crying out, and to walk forward. It is that place, and that takes practice.

Last week on Tiree, I was trying to learn something new on my paddle board, which is how to catch a wave. And what you have to do is get yourself into the wave at the right point, and then to move back on the board. And, this very simple movement, takes so much practice. And is so hard to do when you have a wave coming in behind me. You tend to go far too far. Here is some footage of me doing this.

But the times I caught the wave, felt like the times I moved the least I was able to have a calm. Almost do nothing. And stand on the wave, with the thrill on crossing the sea. But here is the thing doing the least in these situations takes the most amount of practice. To move in big movements is a sign of clumsiness and inexperience to have softer, gentler, trusting movements is a sign of skill and of wisdom and of learning. And that is the heart of the crossing, to move and to be still, Because you trust.

There is another thing about this learning. It becomes compelling, you want to get out there again and again, even though all the time you got toppled and thrown, You wanted to learn, to learn the thrill of moving across the water, to learn the thrill of crossing the sea.

So that is part three, Moving forward with stillness. The last part is the knowing. And for that part I want to go back to Tiree. To the Calmac Ferry terminal at Gott Bay on Tiree. ** Edit Cal Mac, Ferry Crossing, The Islands

In travelling on the ferry I was reminded of the sea journeys that lie in my past. The heritage of my faith, The crossing of the Red Sea, The Crossing of Columba, The heritage of this country, The crossing of the Sea at Dunkirk, Or the crossing of the sea of Industrial revolution To a better society where health is better, and more are included which informs us now as we cross this sea called Covid. And in my faith, The times that God has got me across. The part here is a knowing, That God gets you across the sea. But there is a critical dimension to this That it is the powerless and oppressed that God gets across the sea; The powerful military machine does not make it across. This is a story of God acting decisively; For those on the margins, for those called slaves, for those who were broken and acting against those who trust in their own power; their weapons, and their track record of success. There is a way of reading life; that says that the luck is always against us, that those who won in the past will keep winning into the future, and we who lost in the past will keep losing There is a way of saying that the presidents who lied to the top, and the generals who killed to the top, and the wealthy who bought their way to the top, will also bring the gods of war and the gods of power always to their side this was the theology of Egypt.