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.*
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*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.
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