Sail Humbly with ...

This week's Lectionary texts include Micah 6:8 "God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
Notice that sailing isn't mentioned? Is that because sailing is always a humbling experience? I'm sure we all have had experiences in which we have learned a lot. Anne Pye once commented that she and Peter often sailed with one hand in God's pocket (sometimes firmly clenched). Hopefully we can keep a sense of humor about our experiences - like this experience that John and Pati Letcher relayed to Hal Roth while they were telling yarns.

"We came to Lynn Canal [in SE Alaska], a huge fiord that ran north for 120 miles," said John. "There was a south wind blowing to make our passage up the bay a cinch, but I was worried about getting back south and out. So I asked a commercial fisherman.
"'No problem' said the fisherman. 'She always blows north in Lynn Canal.'
"Marvelous," replied John, who like a good sailor immediately cast off and headed north with the unusual south wind. They sailed to the most remote northerly stretches of the great bay. However, when it came time to sail south John began to look for the northerly wind. It didn't come and it took John and Pati three weeks to beat and row their way out. When they neared the entrance they saw their fisherman friend and hailed him.
"Say, where's that north wind you said always blew here?" asked John.
"The fisherman scratched his head and replied: 'North? What do you mean? She's blowing toward the north right now'."*

Bernard Moitessier meditating during the Long Way.

For me, sailing has always been a form of active prayer. I have to pay attention to the water, to the wind, to the boat. In the process I become aware of the natural world around me and of other people. Sometimes, I even become aware of the fact that I'm no longer thinking about my "shore-side" or personal problems. I've reached a stage of "just being." Of course, I'm always aware of how much I just don't know. This is true of learning, I suppose, finding that the more we know, just how much we don't know. And the entire sailing experience fills me with wonder.  And isn't wonder a close aspect of prayer?

As humility and prayer go together, too, maybe there is a reason that I'm always learning something upon the water.

May we continue to be filled with wonder and humility- and a large dose of humor - as we sail.

Blessed Be,

Joel

____
* Letcher, John S. Self-Steering for Sailing Craft. International Marine Pub Co, 1974. (Forward by Hal Roth)

Soup on Wednesdays - Food for Thought: Motorsailing

Sometimes, I find myself pondering at the intersection of two seemly unrelated pieces of information.

1. I've recently finished reading Peter Pye's Omnibus (the collection of his four cruising books - one of which is not published in any other place). In his second book, The Sea is for Sailing (1957), he writes about their cruise from England, through the West Indies, the Panama Canal, through the South Seas to Bora Bora before heading to Hawaii, and the Pacific Northwest. They spend the winter with the Smeetons near Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada. The next summer they sail north through the inside passage to the Queen Charlotte (Haida Gwaii) Islands, Ketchikan and then into Prince Rupert on their way back down to Vancouver and Victoria. It is here at Prince Rupert where the following takes place. Remember that Moonraker, the Pye's yacht, is a old (built 1896) gaff-rigged cutter, a converted fishing boat of 29 feet.

But there is something I like to remember. We were tied up to the Prince Rupert Yacht and Rowing Club. We had by this time exhausted our supply of “gas” (most of it had gone on priming) so I took our three two-gallon cans to the man who looked after the gas station. I pulled out a five-dollar bill but he firmly shook his head.
“I read in some newspaper you’d sailed from England to Victoria on twelve gallons,” he laughed, “I guess I’d like to give you this to get you home.”      
~ Pye, Peter. The Sea is for Sailing. (1957) (The Peter Pye Omnibus. 1986) 252-3.

The "twelve gallons" might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it does show how much the Pyes (and other voyagers of that generation) sailed rather than powered or motor-sailed.


2. On Monday, I checked a blog I follow from time to time to find this entry which I'll quote in full:

about that motor...

In Rodger Martin's recent IBEX talk about sharpies he said something that resonated for me...

"In the last couple of years while cruising in the Bahamas I’ve seen that the great majority of sloops motorsail upwind or close-reaching with only the
mainsail and downwind with only a jib set. In a month in the Bahamas a couple of years ago out of hundreds of boats I saw only two other boats sailing with both sails up and no engine running..."

Which is not to say I think that engines are a bad thing but for a lot of people they do become a crutch that seriously gets in the way of developing into better sailors.

Just something to keep in mind...

All of this makes me wonder: how much are people actually sailing? We, ourselves, were rather guilty of doing a lot of motorsailing this summer. How about you?

It also makes me wonder: when people talk about how better "modern" (what-ever that means this week) sailboats go to weather, are they talking about motorsailing or actually sailing?

Watch out for the ways that your various seemly unrelated reading might catch you in the cross roads.

Blessed Be,

Joel

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 2014

Tell them to beat their swords into plowshares!
And, then tell them to beat their plowshares into musical instruments!
Then, if they want to make war,
they'll have to stop and make plowshares, first.
~ Roger H. Siminoff*

 As sailors, we might add, beat them into stays and shrouds, into gammon irons and turnbuckles, into tiller cheeks and pintles, into ...

On this day in which we celebrate the extraordinary life of a man of faith who lived out his faith in a non-violent protest for the Beloved Kingdom, how are you living out your life as a sign of the Beloved Kingdom around you? How are your dreams taking shape to improve the world around you? What are you learning from the example of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?

 Blessed Be,

 Joel

________
* Siminoff, Roger H. The Luthier's Handbook. Hal Leonard. 2002. dedication page.

Hospitality to ... the Divine?

Now that the holiday season is over and our homes (houses? yachts?) are empty of guests, it is slightly ironic that I'm thinking about hospitality. But thinking about hospitality I am.

We humans have likely been dependent upon one another's hospitality for thousands of generations. It is only recently in human history that we have been settled people, let alone a blink of the eye that we have modern things like dependable cars and modern hotel chains. Prior to that, hospitality was the name of the game. And one was never really sure how one was hosting (see Genesis 18 - visitation to Abraham and Sarah, Luke 24 - Walk to Emmaus). One might encounter the Divine in the disguise of the guest.*

With that in mind, I give you this poem by Rumi.

Blessed Be,

Joel

Rumi’s Poem:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

* In talking with an English Lit. friend of mine, he pointed out that Zues often went hidden as a traveler to test one's hospitality, too. In addition, there is a scene from one of the Homorisque stories about a group of people who show up, and there is not really any room for them. The character goes to the King wondering what to do, "Shall I send them on?" he asks. The King is outraged: "Find a place for them! Don't you remember how we, too, traveled by boat for ten years dependent all the while on the hospitality of others?!"

Epiphany Boat Blessing - 2014

Today being Epiphany (or the Visitation of the Three Kings), and what with Jupiter showing brightly next to Orion, I thought I would re-post what I mentioned last year regarding the Epiphany Blessing you can use on your boat (or home). We haven't done this as of yet, so the picture is from last year. We are planning this for our evening activities.

Blessed Be,

Joel

From last year:

Epiphany was celebrated in the West yesterday (January 6th), and I thought I'd give a prayer and point to some boat (house) blessings today.

Epiphany is the celebration of the end of the Christmas season (the 12 days following Christmas), and celebrates the Wise men/women (too, ?) coming from the East as they followed the star (see Matthew 2:1-12). As Christianity spread out of the Jewish community to include the Gentile community, Epiphany became important as a reminder that Christ came to all.

It has been a very long tradition to bless human dwellings by marking the door posts/lintels (take for instance the Exodus stories). Epiphany has become a time of blessing dwellings, too. This is often done with chalk with the following notations:

20 + C + M + B + 13

Casper, Melchoir and Balthasar (the C, M and B) have become the names of what tradition has now identified as the three (there have also been 24 and 12 over the years) magi. So a reading of this blessing could be as follows:

The three wise men,
Casper, Melchoir and Balthasar
followed the star of God's Son,
who became human for
20 thousand
13 years ago.
++ May Christ bless our home,
++ And remain with us through out the year. Amen.

I should also mention that C M B can also be (might originally be?) shorthand for the Latin: Christus Mansionem Benedicat ("May Christ Bless this House").

There are a number of prayers that can go with this blessing process - including having a pastor/priest bless the chalk during a worship service, and the congregation taking home the chalk to bless the house. Gertrude Nelson Mueller has a delightful book To Dance With God: Family Ritual and Commuity Celebration. (Paulist Press, 1986) that includes this ritual and others. When I find my copy again (I've misplaced it) I'll write a book review for you. Rev. Basco Peters has an excellent web page about rituals and liturgy (Liturgy: worship that works - spirituality that connects) which I used for some of this information, check it out. He has lots of prayers and ritual suggestions for Epiphany.


Boat's don't really have lintels, but we do have hatches, which is what we used last night following a similar ritual. Adding a prayer out of the United Methodist Hymnal (#255)

          Epiphany
O God,
you made of one blood all nations,
     and, by a star in the East,
     revealed to all peoples him whose name is Emmanuel.
Enable us to know your presence with us
     so to proclaim his unsearchable riches
          that all may come to his light
          and bow before the brightness of his rising,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
     now and for ever. Amen.

(Laurence Hull Stookey - based on Matt 2:1-12)

Hoping your Epiphany was blessed and wishing you a blessed New Year,

Joel