Sven & Ole on April's Fool Day + Palm / Passion Sunday, 2012

1st the April Fool's joke for this coming April Fool's Sunday. (Thanks to my Dad for sending this one - and in case you haven't figured it out, yes, my background is Norwegian.)


Ole is the pastor of the local Norwegian Lutheran Church, and Pastor Sven is the minister of the Swedish Covenant Church across the road.

One day they are seen pounding a sign into the ground, which said:

DA END ISS NEAR!
TURN YERSELF AROUNT
NOW BAFOR IT
ISS TOO LATE!

As a car speeds past them, the driver leans out his window and yells, "Leave people alone, you Skandihoovian religious nuts!"

From the curve, they hear screeching tires and a big splash.

Shaking his head, Rev. Ole says, "Dat's da terd one dis mornin'."
"Yaa," Pastor Sven agrees, then asks, "Do ya tink maybe da sign should yust say, 'Bridge out?'

___

Lectionary Texts: Palm: Psalm 118, Mark 11:1-11 or John 12:12-16
                            Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a; Psalm 31; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 14:1 - 15:47

On a more serious note ... Here we find Jesus with his face set like flint heading into Jerusalem for the show down. We know how it ends ... and then start's again. That is part of our problem, I suppose.  Somehow we miss all the real suspense - the kind that occurs in our daily lives. In our lives, we don't know the ending - or the middle, either. One of the questions that the texts bring this week is the wondering, what is worth dieing for? What principled decisions do I make that are worth not just inconveniencing myself for, but are truly worth dieing for? After all, Jesus could have disappeared during the upcoming week. Instead, Jesus chose to continue his non-violent protest.

Blessings during these final days of Lent.

Joel

Finding Solitude and Finding Ourselves

I've just finished reading Frank Mulville's Single-handed Sailing (book review at a later date) and his view of the single-handed experience turns my mind to the hermits in our midst, to monks in monasteries, and to the desert father and mothers. There is something to be said for the ways that solitude allows us to experience ourselves as we truly are, not as we pretend to be. I've experienced the same with meditation, too. Good prayer brings us not only into the presence of the Divine, but into our own presence. (By the way, is there such a thing as "bad prayer"? I wonder.)

Yet, in our modern/post-modern world of fast paced living, with schedules to be kept, deadlines to met, time with friends and family to squeeze in somewhere a midst the necessity of working so we can continue to work ... where do we find time to be alone? How do we nurture our souls?

There is a story told of two Jesuits on retreat at a monastery. The one rushing from private prayer towards the chapel for the third prayer service of the day, finds the other sitting under the shade of a tree reading a book of poetry. "That won't save your soul, you know?!" "Quite right. But it will make my soul worth saving."

For me ... sailing (even being upon the water) provides these moments, whether I'm with people or not. Laura, my wife, continues to comment that when I'm sailing, she senses this is when I'm truly myself.
May you find time to creatively be alone, be at prayer, be engaged in activities that nurture your soul - that make it worth saving, that allow you to be truly yourself.

And then ... may we be surprised - always surprised - to find that God has been right there with us the entire time.

Blessed Be

Joel

Sailing as Creative Experience: Lent 5, 2012

When we cross a bridge, can we really ever go back to the same place - after all, we've changed, haven't we? We don't see things the same way we once did. I'm not suggesting burning our bridges, merely pointing out that the act of crossing the bridge changes us. Of course, living on the other side of the bridge for a while, of course, changes us even more. All this assumes we let the new experience change us.
Why is it then, that we are so reluctant to let go of the past? Why is it that we bring all sorts of things with us, only to discard them along the new road we are traveling? Part of this may simply be that we didn't know we didn't need them until we were well underway.
Living aboard (or at any other margin of society) is a frontier lifestyle. There are rewards and sacrifices that are markable different than a life a shore's rewards and sacrifices. Those that continue to live a life on the frontier believe that the rewards outweigh the sacrifices. But my other sense is that, those who embrace this life, also experience themselves differently than where they were living previously. A part of them has died, been mourned, and another part of them has rose.
Such is what I've been thinking about as I read the passage for this week, especially Jeremiah 31:31-34 in which God promises to plant a new Garden, and to establish a new covenant with the people. A covenant that is written upon the heart. "No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, for the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (v. 34)"
And isn't this, in part, what Jesus is getting at in the John 12:20-33 text? "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life." (vs. 24-25)
It is not just the loving this life (or not dieing), it is loving this life in this world order. Those who live on the frontier have given up this world order for some reason. Does this give them an opportunity to enter into eternal life, here and now?
I think that all changes in life, give us an opportunity to die and rise again, and in the process shed all that is keeping us from truly living in eternal life, and embrace resurrection and eternal life. All change can do this, but a voyage (even of vacation length) can, too.
Such was in my mind while I read the following passage from Frank Mulville. I think this experience is true for a singled-handed passage (I remember some of mine in small boats) but is equally true for other experiences (i.e. the first non-engine assisted passage, etc.) See if it strikes a chord with you, too.
Blessed Be
Joel

Creative experience
     With a sailing boat a man or a woman can move himself or herself to any part of the world which is connected with the sea and is navigable. He can also do this unaided, using his own strength and his own intelligence. He wastes no resources, causes no pollution, demands no services - he borrows the wind, uses it for his purpose and returns it intact. He is as free a man as it is possible to be in a world where each person depends to a greater or lesser extent upon the assistance of his fellows. The lone sailor goes free, however far away his destination. When at last he casts his anchor in some remote lagoon or ties his ship to some distant quay he can stand on deck, upright and proud in the sure knowledge that he has done it all himself. He has created an experience just as surely as a painter creates a work of art. He has communed with the ocean, learnt to live under its august discipline, mastered the laws of its terrible and awesome justice. He will never again be the same man after his first lone voyage - for as long as he lives he will possess the ocean and no person or circumstance will ever be able to take it from him. To go away alone is a grave undertaking - a man should be certain beyond any doubt before he sets sail by himself and that it is his inalienable determination to go it alone. If he has a single doubt let him turn back before he starts. There is no room for false pride on the ocean.*

_____
*Frank Mulville. Single-handed Sailing. Seafarer Books: London, 1981, reprint 1994.  10. Underlined italics are my emphasis.
Mulville is quite clear that women can single hand (and might be better adept) and I debated as to whether to edit this passage into more inclusive language. In the end, I decided to keep it as Mulville had written it.

Participating in Long Human Traditions

Every once in a while I realize that I'm participating in something that humans have been engaged in for 90% or more of our existence. In our modern/post-modern life, it is easy to forget that the majority of humans have lived a nomadic/rural life. It was only 2004-05 that one of us humans wandered into a city and the balance shifted to being an urban species for the first time in our collective history.
But how many of us humans have watched the stars or a sunset or sunrise? How many of us have noticed dark clouds on the horizon, a change in the wind direction and looked for shelter? What about the very act of lighting a fire?
While it is relatively resent that people have gone to sea for pleasure (sea travel itself is ancient), I find myself connected to our ancient ancestors on a physical level while living, and especially, sailing our boat. Here is something - a way of life - that directly depends upon elemental forces of nature (wind, tide, current) that are little changed throughout human history. And a good cruise is by its nature nomadic.
While the Little Book (Bible) continues to speak to me, I also find the Big Book (the world/paradise) speaking more and more to me too.
Where do you find the Divine speaking to you? Where do you find yourself connected/interconnected to our common human history?
Blessed Be
Rev. Joel

Dare We Open Our Eyes?: Lent 4, 2012

Once one's eyes have been opened to reality, can we really ever shut them? And if we shut them, are we choosing ignorance rather than embracing knowledge? Once our eyes have been opened, and we choose to shut them, are we living falsely?

As I read the Lectionary texts for this week (Numbers 21: 4-9; Psalm 107; Ephesians 2: 1-10; John 3: 14-21) these are questions I'm asking myself. John's gospel has three groups of people with an internal struggle: the disciples, the Jews/Judeans, and those in the middle who have experienced what it means to be a disciple (and would consider themselves to be one ... but in secret) but refuse to do anything because they fear the Jews/Judeans (those who have the power in the local synagogue). I want to point out that this is an inter-synagogue dispute, a family dispute. This is NOT an anti-Semitic diatribe. This is like saying that Paul Revere called out "The British are coming, the British are coming!" Um, the colonies were British at the time.

John's community is struggling with what it means to be faithful to the Torah. One group says being faithful means following Jesus, the polar opposite says, No. The group in the middle says, "follows Jesus," but acts out "No." The harshest criticism from John is for the middle group, the one's who know better but don't do anything, the folks like Nicodemus (who, you notice, comes to Jesus secretly in the dark).

But also like those in the desert, there are times when we remember the way things were before and wonder what it would be like to be back there again. Oh ... to have the garden instead of this manna!

Lent is a time to be honest with ourselves, whether we like it or not. And ... I'm not sure I really like these questions I'm asking myself. Because they point as much at me, as anyone. Where are those places in my life where I'm choosing to keep an eye shut (or both) although I know better? If someone was looking at my life, could they deduce what I believe and say I stand for?

What I do know is that I can say with Paul that it was not my own actions that opened my eyes, but rather grace. And it is this sense of grace that I hold onto, as I try to live out my faith in ways that reinforce what I believe. In the meantime, I continue to look at what is raised in the desert with faith that it will heal me, too.

Blessed Be

Joel

Specialization or Generalist

Our culture seems to view specialization as the answer to things, whether it be a new weather app for your phone or a PhD or certain ways of farming (according to the Ag Industry). Yet, it hasn't always been this way. It was not all that long ago when visitors from Europe were amazed at American ingenuity, creativeness and know how. "Average" (is there such a thing?) Americans were inventing things right and left - sometimes very similar things to what someone else was inventing in another state, without knowing it. By and large, the American population was a population of generalists.

And so I wonder, are we better off (as a species, as a culture) being specialists, or being generalists? Are we better off as a subspecies of frog that lives its entire life in an orchid in the Amazon rain forest, or as a seagull?

Seagulls can be a nuisance - that's for sure. And people seem to either really love them, or hate them. But you got to give them credit, they are EVERYWHERE! They eat anything. Talk about a generalist; talk about adaptability!

In this time of environmental (and economic?) change, it would seem to me that being a generalist allows one to be more adaptable. Not all the eggs are in one nest for the seagull to rob, sort to speak.

I think that a life on the water, calls for this sort of generalist, adaptable attitude and approach, but I certainly don't think it is the only place.

Where are you being called to adapt? Are you finding being a generalist or a specialist more useful?

Just my pondering as I watch seagulls fly around on a very blustery March day.

Blessed Be

Joel

Shantyboating Shapes Life at Payne Hollow: Lent 3, 2012

Jesus overturns the temple in this weeks lesson from John 2:13-22. Where are our expectations "turned over" to offer us a chance of freedom? What are we holding onto that might get in our way of living a more full life?
Harlan and Anna Hubbard upon getting married built a shantyboat to float down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. They then spent forty years living on the fringe of society on a Homestead on the Ohio River, Kentucky: Payne Hollow. That experience of turning their back - or at least living in tension - with the demands of the world versus the demands of the earth is reflected in this quote below.
I have found that our living upon our sailboat has shaped how we now see the world, too. What shapes how you see the world?

Blessed Be

Joel

     Once, when Bill [Shadrick] was beached out at Big Six, he accepted a ride into town from a friend of ours. Noting that he was a stranger, Bill asked him what had brought him to these parts. Upon learning that he had been visiting Harlan Hubbard in Payne Hollow, Bill considered a moment, then put another question: "Is he a real riverman?"
     This puzzled our friend, but we can see Bill's point. He himself was indeed a real riverman, born on a shantyboat and as much a part of the river as the catfish and driftwood. On the other hand, we had come to the river by choice and to his sensitive eye some remnants of our former town environment still clung to us. He regarded us as amateurs.
     Yet it could be asserted that we are closer to the river than Bill ever was. An undeniable love for the river drew us away from town and down to the shore; the boat we built there was to carry us into a new existence. This regeneration gave a direction to our lives that Anna had never before contemplated; for me it was the fulfillment of old longings; yet we were both led on by a common desire to get down to earth and to express ourselves by creating a setting for our life together which would be in harmony with the landscape.
     Thus our conception of shantyboating - for we still regard ourselves as shantyboaters even though our home is a house on shore instead of a boat - is quite different from Bill Shadrick's. It goes deeper than his, and rests on firmer ground. We live with a tautness which results in pressures and tensions from the outside world that Bill never experienced in his easygoing way. Our house, like our boat, is always in order, well arranged and clean as a pin. We cannot sit in idleness for very long at a time, letting life drift along as it will. To buy bread and coffee, beans and bacon from the store and pay for such inferior provender by catching and selling fish does not appeal to us at all. We catch fish for our own eating, get all our living as direct means as possible, that we may be self-sufficient and avoid contributing to the ruthless mechanical system that is destroying the earth.
     In this endeavor, no sacrifice is called for, no struggle or effort of will. Such a way is natural. Rather than hardship, it brings peace and inner rewards beyond measure.
     Thus shantyboating has become, for us, a point of view, a way of looking at the world and at life. You take neither of them too seriously, nor do you try to understand their complexities. Who can? It is an obviously illogical philosophy, in which the individual is supreme. The claims made on him by his inner beliefs are above the demands of society. He is not without compassion, but his love is expended on those of his fellow men he is in contact with. With no schemes for universal betterment, he tends his own garden.
     Is this selfish? No. The selfish man wants more than his share, a higher seat at the table than he is entitled to. One strong enough to stand by himself is not attracted by the prizes which the world offers. He has his own values, receives other rewards, for which there is no competition.
     Instead of trying to make everyone alike, the state and society should encourage individualism. Individuals will never be too numerous; in fact, they are becoming harder to find. The river shantyboater has passed away, along with the old river; yet a few renegades will always be found, out in the brush somewhere, or on a forgotten bit of river shore, content with an environment the proud would scorn. The shantyboat strain is not likely to be cultivated out of existence, any more than the earth will ever be completely subdued.
~ Harlan Hubbard. Payne Hollow: Life on the Fringe of Society. (Gnomon Press, 1974, 1997), 161-163.

Ave, Frater - John G. Hanna Poem

Hanna's Tahiti Ketch

As it is blowing here in Blaine today, and the seagulls are gliding through the sky, I thought I'd add a bit of poetry.

John Hanna is most known for his Tahiti Ketch design. He also designed other boats, and was a writer for both MotorBoat and The Rudder, where he enjoyed stirring up controversy and hold various "fencing matches" with other designers. What may not be known (at least I didn't) was that he also wrote poetry. Below is an example I found in John Stephen Doherty's A Ketch Called Tahiti: John G. Hanna and His Yacht Designs (International Marine Publishing Comp, 1987).

Enjoy.

Blessed Be
Joel

              Ave, Frater

Around my ship, in jostling mass,
     Are hosts of seagulls flying:
They follow and cross, pursue and pass,
     Squabbling, squawking, crying.

With all the wide sea's space to use,
     They choose to crowd together;
Despite discord, conflict, abuse,
     Desiring one another.

Far up a faint black form I spy
     On quiet pinions riding -
A frigate-bird in the gray sky
     His lonely course abiding.

For him no crowding in a herd,
     No need of any other,
No wish for clacking tongue's discord -
     Oh, hail you, my brother!

~ John G. Hanna (Written at sea, January 30, 1932)

Who Do We Say We Are?: Lent 2, 2012

Who are we? Is that different from who we say we are? Is that different from what others say we are?

If we go solely with what we do, then this lunch hour I was added weight - literally. [The marina has been replacing sections of dock, and as I was walking down the main dock, five guys were standing on a finger section trying to get it weighed down so they could attach it firmly to the main dock. They needed some one else.] I was also a clothes delivery person. [As a Special Ed Pre-School teacher, my wife was on the receiving end of bile this morning. So I got a call, "Help. Please bring a clean shirt!"] Or what about those advertisements we are confronted with when ever we open the paper, turn on the radio or watch TV, as if consumers is all we are.

But we all know that this isn't just who we are. We are more.

Do you notice the "I Am" in the question? "I Am" is another name for God, coming from Moses and the burning bush story: Moses asks, "What is your name? What shall I tell the people when they ask who sent me?" ... "I Am Who I Am."

The danger, of course, is that we domesticate God by putting our images of ourselves onto God.

 Jesus wrestles with such questions about identity this coming Sunday (See Mark 8: 31-38): Who do others say that I am? Who do you say that I am?

When do we find time to reflect upon such things? At sea, during the night watch? One can hope. Sometimes this is the case. But sometimes, the best time might just be in the middle of rush hour traffic.

Here's Dr. Peter H. Strykers take on it, after a solo crossing from California to Hawaii:

Some people (guess who among them) started this solo sail hoping and expecting to find clarity in some of their soul searching. The solo sailor is either too busy, too tired, or too elated to do any meditating. A drive during rush hour in an automatic automobile is probably more appropriate for meditating. There is a situation where there is nothing on can do. Turn off the radio and that is the time to meditate. For many of us civilized western people it is the only time that we have no piped-in music or bosses, wives, [does this mean husbands are not a distraction?] children, telephone, singing birds, or beautiful nature, food, drinks, exercises, set, etc. to distract us. The only thing we have to do is steer the car. That is enough distraction to create an atmosphere for meditating. To have to concentrate on meditating can be in itself very distracting. There are some people who even want to take that single moment of tranquility away from us and who advise such things as "share a ride" or increased public transportation. Let's do the meditating or soul-searching behind our two hundred horse-power, but do not single-hand to Hawaii for your answers! Anyway, I am not going to talk into this tape recorder about my soul. That is my private business as long as I'm alone on my boat."* (Peter H. Strykers, M.D. The Floating Harpsichord: One Sailor's Log and Manuals for Solo-Sailing and Solo-Medicine. Ten Speed Press, 1987. p. 164)

Where ever your schedule, may you find time to reflect on how much a beloved child of God you are.

Blessed Be

Joel

___
*Stryker's middle section of his book is a daily log that he edited from spoken tapes (and yes, he did take a harpsichord and play it on the passage. I think this section gives you an idea of how delightful this book is to read). I think the above quote says that he probably did some more soul searching than he thought, but not as much as he wanted. It is interesting to note that Bernard Moitessier seems to have done a lot of it during the Long Way.