Blue Boat Home

Though below me, I feel no motion

standing on these mountains and plains.

Far away from the rolling ocean

still my dry land heart can say:

I’ve been sailing all my life now,

never harbor or port have I know.

The wide universe is the ocean I travel

and the earth is my blue boat home.

Sun my sail and moon my rudder

as I ply the starry sea,

leaning over the edge in wonder,

casting questions into the deep.

Drifting here with my ship’s companions,

all we kindred pilgrim souls,

making our way by the lights of the heavens

in our beautiful blue boat home.

I give thanks to the waves upholding me,

hail the great winds urging me on,

greet the infinite sea before me,

sing the sky my sailor’s song:

I was born upon the fathoms,

never harbor or port have I known.

The universe is the ocean I travel,

and the earth is my blue boat home.

~Peter Mayer, 1963 - , copywrite 2002

Traveling as Encounters of the Soul

Those of us who travel abroad encounter countries and cultures first hand. With our own five senses we experience how others live, interact with each other, worship, eat, work. We have insights into how their surroundings shape patterns of behavior, culture, and thought processes. It has been my experience that sometimes, things are not as they have been reported through the mass media. Some times these experiences sadden me. At times I wish to cry out, "Why are not these autocracies being reported to the wider world!?" At other times I have found myself stunned into silence by shear Grace. And I find myself marveling, as one person has said, "that all true prayer leads to silence." And I am left with a profound sense of hope.

I am reading William Dalryple's From the Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians of the Middle East. He has got me thinking about my own experiences of travel, and of those you are acquiring as I write. May you find yourself amazed at how God is at work.

~ Joel

"[At the convent of Seidnaya in Syria] I too witnessed a miracle, or something that today would certainly be regarded as a miracle in almost any other country in the Middle East. For the congregation seemed to consist not of Christians but almost entirely of heavily bearded Muslim men. As the priest circled the altar with his thurible, filling the sanctuary with great clouds of incense, the men bobbed up and down on their prayer mats as if in the middle of Friday prayers in a great mosque. Their women, some dressed in full black chador, mouthed prayers from the shadows of the exo-narthex. A few, closely watching the Christian women, went up to the icons hanging from the pillars of the church, kissed them, then lit candles and placed them in the candelabra in front of the images. As I watched from the rear of the church I could see the faces of the women reflected in the illuminated gilt of the icons.
"Toward the end of the service, the priest reappeared with a golden stole over his cassock and circled the length of the church with his thurible, gently and almost apologetically stepping over the prostrate Muslims blocking his way, treading as carefully as if they were precious Iznik vases. While I had seen Muslims and Christians praying together on the island of Buyuk Ada, off Istanbul, this was something quite different: a degree of tolerance - in both congregations - unimaginable today almost anywhere else in the Near East. Yet it was, of course, the old way: the Eastern Christians and the Muslims have lived side by side for nearly one and a half millennia, and have only been able to do so due to a degree of mutual tolerance and shared customs unimaginable in the solidly Christian West" (187-8).

A Song for All The Nations

On this USA Independence Day, I wanted to share a hymn that I often included as a part of worship. We who are traveling abroad often get opportunities to experience other cultures, lands, and peoples. I have always been reminded about what makes other peoples, lands, cultures great and not so great, while at the same time being reminded about what makes my own people, land, and culture great and no so great. When I travel, I am reminded that I am able to do so because of the goodwill and hospitality of other peoples. Indeed, my travels and well-being have often depended upon it.

Blessings on your travels.

Joel

"This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my sacred shrine.
But other hearts in other lands are beating,
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
"My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight, too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh, hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.
"May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long,
That each may seek to love and build together
a world united, righting every wrong --
A world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song."
~ Music: Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) "Finlandia"
~ Words: Lloyd Stone 1934

The Journey ~ Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life that you could save.

Earth Day 2010

Happy Earth Day, a day late.

I took a trip down to the Padilla Bay Interpretative Center with a bunch of fourth graders yesterday. It is always great to be outside, to explore the tide-flats and take the time to see all sorts of creatures. And when you add 4th graders who are exploring a lot of this for the first time, and are bubbling with excitement, it just makes it all the more blessed.

Hope you had time to explore the out of doors and the bit of paradise where you live.

While at the Padilla Bay Interpretive Center, I ran across this poem that I'll share:

Ish River
like a breath,
like mist rising from a hillside.
Duwamish, Snohomish, Stillaguamish, Samish,
Skokomish, Skykomish ... all the ish rivers.

I live in the Ish River country
between two mountain ranges whre
many rivers
run down to an inland sea.
~ Robert Sund

Questions of Jesus - 13 April - Resurrection

Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? Do you love me? Do you love me?
(John 21:15-17)

Questions of Jesus - 12 April - Resurrection

Children, have you caught anything to eat?
(John 21:5)