Lots of Walking to Do

This morning, a second-grader taught me about the apostleship and the ways in which symbolism can become too easy and too vague. The second grade at St. Ambrose is supposed to be memorizing the names of the 12 apostles for this upcoming Friday, and one of their projects today was cutting out paper fish shapes and writing a disciple's name on each colored fish. The teacher had me go around the room and help each student thread their fish onto a piece of yard so they could have the whole catch on a string. It was a really cute project about the 'fishers of men' and the students did a very good job cutting and labelling.

One little boy named Cameron, however, had some very unusual looking fish on his desk. Instead of the simple oval-with-a-tail model, his apostle-fish had multiple extra appendages attached all over them. When I came up to string the fish, Cameron's desk neighbors pointed to his odd-looking fish and told me I should cut off all the extra stuff because he didn't do it right. I assured Cameron that he had done a fine job and that I was not going to cut anything off his fish, but I couldn't help wondering what these amoeba-like creatures were supposed to be. Thinking that Cameron must have had some creepy deep- sea creatures in mind, I asked if there was a reason he had decided to add tentacles to the apostles.

"No, they're not tentacles!" Cameron explained. "They're legs. Peter and Andrew had lots of walking and talking to do."

It was a delightful moment, and I thought it was very insightful of Camerion to realize that fish bodies weren't going to be adequate for all that the followers of Christ needed to do. After all, they were called out of the water and away from their boats to engage people in a new way. If we were going to make these holy people into fish for symbolism, then of course the fish needed feet! Being an apostle was the opposite of sitting in a pond breathing bubbles. The word meant 'someone sent out' or 'messenger' and Cameron had given his cut-outs the tools necessary to be that. Those fish on his desk looked more than a little strange, but they made quite a bit of sense once I really thought about the essence of those early saints on the earth.

~Stephanie