Matthew 4:18 Meaning Walking by the Sea of Galilee

The sea is the deep of the subconscious, the wide waters of feeling and buried thought out of which every impulse rises. To fish those waters is the mind drawing up its own contents, catching what stirs below the surface of daily awareness and lifting it into the light of attention. Peter, whose name is the rock, is the faculty of steady conviction, the firm standing place in the psyche; Andrew, rooted in manliness and strength, is the courage that acts on what the deep gives up.

These are not men recruited by a roadside but powers within one person being called into service, the settled conviction and the strength paired as brothers to work the waters. What happens is the awakening mind beginning to gather from its own depths the material it will refine.

Sea of Galilee: the deep subconscious, the waters of feeling and hidden thought within a person Peter: the rock of firm conviction, the steady standing place in the mind Andrew: the inner strength and courage that acts on what the depths yield Net: the reach of focused attention that draws thought up out of the deep

Simon and Andrew at their nets are the everyday mind at its usual work, hauling up what lies beneath in the sea, not knowing that their true center is already walking toward them along the shore.

To fish the sea is to stand at the edge of the deep mind shared by all people, and Christ, standing for that whole self, changes the act, naming a net cast not into water but into the soul. Peter's coming greatness, his later role as a living face of God, is already folded into this moment of being called.

The nets left behind are the mask a person shows the world; the first step in following is where the journey to wholeness begins.