What was it actually that convinced Simon Peter to follow Jesus? What would compel him to leave family, home and a steady income for uncertainty, homelessness and danger? It's a question we confront again and again in the Gospels: what drew people to Jesus? What did they see in him? What convinced them to abandon everything that was familiar in order to follow him? What were they after? Trying to answer this, the Gospel writers generally offer stories of miracles, but was that really it? Today's Gospel reading suggests that the answer wasn't so straightforward. The fact that Jesus had noticed a particularly large school of fish may certainly have been very fortunate, but it was hardly a miracle. Something else was at work there. What was it?

My own answer to this question begins many years ago - more, in fact, than I like to remember. It goes back to when I was nineteen. I had developed an intense longing to see what Herman Melville called "the watery part of the world," so I took a summer job working as the Captain's Steward on a Merchant Marine training ship. We made two round trip crossings of the Atlantic. Our home port was in New York's East River. From there we sailed into the Mediterranean by way of the Azores, docking in Rome's port city of Civitavecchia, then to the island of Malta. Returning to New York, we set out again. This time we headed North, docking in the cities of Bremen Germany and Cork Ireland.

In Cork I had five days free. It wasn't much, but it was all I needed because I had a very specific place I wanted to go. It was a place I had learned of by chance a few months earlier, a tiny island called Skellig Michael. I had seen pictures of it. Skellig Michael is an obscure bit of bare rock that rises in two slender peaks miles off the southwestern coast of Ireland. The place is all but inaccessible - nothing but vertical cliffs and jagged, windswept stone. It stands in the cold Atlantic like a pair of twin spikes. The place is uninhabited and, apparently, uninhabitable, and yet for nearly two hundred years beginning around the year 500 this bleak, wave-battered bit of naked granite had been home to a small community of Christian monks. I was determined to visit the spot - if I could get there, that is.

It took me two days of travel, first by train to Killarney then by rental car to the tip of the Iveragh Peninsula, Ireland's furthermost western reach. There I stopped in one desolate little fishing village after another until a woman gave me the name of a fisherman who could sometimes be persuaded to take people out to the island. She said it was an all day trip. The woman told me that several others had arrived that day hoping to make the same journey and that the fisherman had already agreed to take them the next morning. If I was on the dock by 6 a.m., she said, he would probably take me too.

I arrived to find that the others were already there. There were eight in all, a German couple, a white-haired Belgian couple, a pair of middle-aged Irish woman, and a man and woman of indeterminate nationality. With the sun rising behind us, we stood apart (the way people do who don't know each other) and waited as the fisherman and his young son, a boy who could not have been more than 10 years old, peered out to sea. The wind was hard. The waves were high. The two were trying to decide if the journey could be made at all. In retrospect I realize I should have given more thought to what might cause a man who made his daily living off the sea to hesitate in this way.

After several minutes, the German woman went over to the fisherman and pointed to the dozen or so boats that were already bobbing in the open water.

"They're out," she said.

"Ah, yes," the man answered, "but they're only fishing. We have to land… out there." He pointed across the wide expanse of churning, white-capped waves to a dark needle of stone rising just at the edge of the horizon then turned around and peered at the woman. "Landing there is bad enough when the weather's calm," he said, "and I want to get my boy back alive."

When the woman didn't reply, the fisherman turned his gaze seaward again. I didn't really take his words seriously and yet it was true that he couldn't seem to make up his mind. He studied the waves, glanced up at the clouds, then pivoted to face into the wind. At last he turned to the group. He nodded: he would risk it.,/P>

Once he had decided, we had to move quickly. One by one we climbed down the ladder to his fishing boat. It was a small craft, about twenty feet long. There was no cabin or covering of any sort, only an open space with nets and other debris piled to one side behind the steering wheel where the fisherman stood with his son. This left an area about eight feet by six feet for the rest of us. There wasn't enough room to sit so we all stood, huddled together just behind the fisherman.

It took us half an hour to work our way through the channel and out into the open water. As soon as we cleared the headlands the boat began to climb up and down swells that rose nearly two stories in height. Riding a crest, it was as if we were perched on the top a small mountain but then an instant later we'd drop into a trough and find ourselves at the bottom of a valley, completely surrounded by water.

One of the two Irish women became ill. Cramped as we were, we pressed closer together, making a bed with the nets so that she could stretch out on the deck.

The boat rose and fell. Those close to the edge gripped the sides to steady themselves, but those of us standing more towards the center had nothing to hang onto. Again and again we were thrown against each other and from time to time I'd be forced to grasp the shoulder of the person beside me in order to keep from being thrown off my feet. I'd quickly apologize and remove my hand, but as this happened more and more often, I finally just left my hand on my neighbor's shoulder. Soon others began to rest their hands on my shoulder, too. The violent rolling continued and in a short time all pretense of propriety had vanished. We stood with arms simply locked around one another, hugging each other to keep from falling.

For three hours we stood huddled together like this as the fisherman fought a brutal headwind and fierce currents. Slowly our destination drew nearer. The closer we came, the more terrifying the place appeared. Viewed from below it seemed nothing but a tower of stone. I could see only vertical lines, just sheer cliffs - one massive, grey wall being pounded, pounded, pounded by waves, the water exploding into spray.

As we approached, the fisherman and his young son grew visibly more tense.

"Where's he going to land?" a man beside me asked in a low voice.

I'd been wondering that very thing myself. There was nothing even remotely like a beach - no sort of pier or dock at all - and the surf was hammering the rock face with a force that would shatter a boat many times larger than ours.

Standing behind me was the white-haired Belgian woman.

"Dear God, help us," she whispered.

Slowly the fisherman circled the island. Great surging waves were rolling in, blown by the wind. They crashed against the island's jagged rocks. The fisherman had to fight the wind and current to keep free of them. Suddenly one wave took hold of us. It began to carry us sideways, dragging us closer - closer towards the rocks - pushing us to what seemed almost certain death. "Dear God, help us," the Belgian woman behind me whispered again. The fisherman spun the wheel and gunned the already straining engines. The wave crashed over the bow, soaking all of us…but we were free. The boat pushed to safety.

Finally something like a dock came into view. Rather than relieving our anxiety, though, glimpsing this only made it worse. We could see where the waves had gouged a thin crevice in the stone. It looked like a sea cave whose roof had collapsed. Built along its edge, however, was a narrow slab of concrete. It was a crude pier. The trouble was, the waves that were being pressed into the tight funnel of stone that housed this pier were the deadliest we had yet seen. They surged into the space with such force that spray was exploding like a geyser, shooting a hundred feet into the air. It seemed impossible to enter without being smashed to pieces.

"He's not going to land there, is he?" the man beside me asked.

The fisherman spoke to the boy. The child climbed out onto the top of the boat and began to work his way towards the front. There, perched at the very point of the bow, he took a coil of heavy rope in his hand, and raised himself into a crouch. He was like a racer ready to spring. The fisherman maneuvered the boat to point towards the crevice. He then slowed the engine. He edged us closer… closer. All at once a wave took hold of us. The man cut the engine as the wave carried us forward like a surf board, driving us directly towards the split in the stone. Suddenly the man bellowed into the wind.

"Go!" he shouted to his son.

We were still some ways from the dock but the boy sprang, leaping across open water. For a moment I thought he wasn't going to make, then his feet hit just at the edge of the concrete. He ran, sprinting ahead of us, then frantically lashed the rope around a brass mooring. The line snapped taut at once and the boat stopped abruptly, throwing us against each other as the wave on which we had been riding surged ahead and shattered into spray.

The fisherman turned to face us.

"You have three hours," he said calmly.

The fisherman then pointed to steps cut into the stone and one by one we began to climb. This stairway had been chiseled almost fifteen hundred years earlier. It was as steep as a ladder but by now we were helping each other without a thought. The elderly Belgian couple especially needed assistance. I helped the others lift them from one stage to another. Eventually the incline leveled to a narrow trail that rose to a series of small man-made terraces built along the very edge of the cliff. There we found half a dozen primitive stone huts of very simple constructions - just one stone piled on top of another with only a door on the side and a hole at the top for smoke to escape. These were the monk's cells. Beehive huts they were called. They looked like stone igloos. In addition to these were the ruins of a tiny church. It was about one third the size of our chapel over there. There was a slab of stone into which had been carved a Celtic cross. There was also a small graveyard, although there seemed hardly enough soil to cover the roots of plants let alone the bones of the dead. That was all. There were no trees. There was no vegetation apart from moss and coarse grass. There was hardly even space to move around - just wind and rock. And far below, the waves pounding…pounding.

And this is where, 1500 years ago, Christian monks chose to make their home, I thought.

I walked from hut to hut. I ran my hand over the soft, cold moss. I stood beside the ancient graves. I paced out the ruins of the tiny church. Finally the awesomeness of it made me stop. I looked around. The dark sea was everywhere. I shivered from the wind. Cold and wild in August, it would be deadly in January. I looked back to the mainland, no more than a grey line on the horizon, then I turned to gaze at the horizon to the west where, as these monks believed, the earth fell away. Ireland was as far west as it was then possible to go in Europe and find human habitation. The men who had come here had gone further still. They had found a way to perch on a point at what they thought was the very edge of the world. Why had they done it? Why would anyone chose to live in this desolate, dangerous, lonely place? What had brought them here? Returning to the boat, the question continued to plague me as we began our journey back to the mainland. Slowly the sky passed from blue, to pink, to deep purple as the wind grew steadily stronger, but it was all I could think of: what had brought them here?

On one level, though, I already knew. It was the very same thing that had brought me there too. They were looking for something…and so was I. They were seeking a wider meaning, an explanation for why we are here, some evidence of a larger purpose to things, a larger purpose to themselves. I knew this because I was seeking it too. We all are. It's one of the things that seems to make human beings different from animals - this craving for meaning, this nagging conviction that there's something more to life, something more to us. Why were we built this way, I wondered. Why would we be constructed in a manner that pushes us constantly to reach out to something beyond ourselves, to a reality we seem hardly able even to imagine?

Then suddenly it occurred to me. This yearning - this longing for meaning - might actually itself be the key to that meaning. It is, after all, part of the very fabric of who we are. Perhaps this longing is simply God stirring within us. It's a seed that God planted in each of us - the seed of God's own self - and it's reaching out to the God who planted it. And in reaching out, it's whispering to us, guiding us.

But what was it saying, I wondered. What was it trying to tell us?

By now, the light had vanished altogether. There we were, eleven people in a tiny boat pushing though a void as black as space itself. It was a moonless night. Far in the distance I could see the beacon that marked the headland, but it was so far away… so far… and the waves were growing higher. As they rose and fell, the distant light would vanish for moments at a time, disappearing behind a wall of solid water. All of us were cold and wet but a few were dangerously chilled. About half had come with winter coats. The rest had worn only light jackets or sweaters. (It was August, after all, and the morning had seemed bright enough.) I was one of those with only a sweater and by the time the sun had set I was shivering so badly I was finding it difficult to stand.

Once again the white-haired Belgian woman was standing behind me. She was one of those with a winter coat.

My shaking increased. "Lean closer," she said to me.

Before I knew what was happening she had pulled me against her. She wrapped her arms around me. Only then did I realize that she had unbuttoned her coat. As her arms circled me, she pulled her coat around me so that it now circled us both. She held me like this… and little by little her warmth began to pass into me until slowly my shivering stopped. Then, looking around, I saw that all the rest had followed her example. Everyone with a winter coat had opened it to share with someone else. Several had even brought their coats together so that all could be included.

This is it, I thought. This is why we reach out, why we have to reach out. It is this that the seed of God is whispering to us: we are all connected. We depend on each other. We need each other's companionship, each other's support, each other's love. We need each other's warmth. We need this just live. Even more, though, we need it to be the creatures God made us to be.

It's true, you know. Here we all are, huddled together on this fragile little craft we call earth, hurtling through an infinite darkness towards a light we sometimes see and sometimes don't and which can seem very far away at times. It could be very frightening. Very frightening. Except for this, the great truth that we're all interconnected - all of humanity, all of life. And not only that - all matter, all energy. The rocks, the sea, the wind. Everything, everything, all interconnected. We're connected to each other. Most of all, though, we're connected to the source of that connection.

It was this, I believe, that drew Simon Peter to Jesus. It was this he chose to follow. It is this that Jesus is calling all of us to follow too. Reach out, he says. Reach out to others. Reach out to all that is. We are all one. This is the meaning you seek. It's right here. Open your coat. We are all one. Share your warmth.