Sea Legs

I have good sea legs. I suppose it starts with my love of the ocean that was cultivated with a love of Ernest Hemingway's books about Key West and Havana, Cuba. And I made pilgrimages to both places. Throw shag music, the Beach Boys, and Jimmy Buffet in the background and a beach bum is born. Add good friends who love it like you do and it becomes a party.

I am fond of telling people that all of the things that I do at Union Mission is really just an attempt to support my beach bum habit. Now I love what I do at Union Mission but there is this other side of my life that somehow enables me to continue the work year after year. Each one of us has some other outlet for the triumph and tragedy of the work. Mine is salt air and sea.

So yesterday, my friends and I took a sea cruise. A 37 foot speed boat with two outboards and we made our way around the island. We stopped and snorkled a calm bay then sped to a deep reef. I am always mesmerized by the clicking sounds of the fish eating away at the coral. When the fish are plentiful as they were yesterday it sounds like a chorus singing underway.

Then I spied that Patti and Paul were helping Hania back to the boat so I swam over to be point in case other help was needed. The rougher waters were just a bit to much for her.

Back in the boat I had 37 emails that were waiting on me so I sat in the hull and answered them. Union Mission manages a lot of things that hurting and lost people need every day and you can never get completly away from it.

When I came out, it was time for lunch in another bay so I swam in and joined the others. Feasting on ribs, pasta and fruit, Hania was still feeling faint. So she did. But with cold water and surrounded by love, she rebounded quickly.

Then it was back on the boat where another 28 emails were waiting on me. I resumed my seat in the hull and answered them as we sped to the wayward side of the island. These were much rougher waters. Most everyone was in the back but the first mate was riding the bow, standing in the front as the boat crashed through wave after wave. I made my way to the other side of the bow and rode too.

The swells were four or five feet and were relentless and the boat would rise high in the air and then crash into sea again and again. It became a competition between me and the first mate. Ride with one hand up in the air. Ride with both hands raised (though the seas were too rough for that). For almost an hour we were one with the power of the sea. And we pounded waves laughing and throwing caution to the wind as we rode the bow.

And I one point I heard the voice of God in the wind and the spray and the crashing of the bow into the sea with me standing on it. For much of the last few years, this is what my life has been like. Crash after crash occuring in my work and in my private life. Managing people's crashed lives at work. Taken all together, it could have drowned me. Hell, it would have drown anyone.

Yet here I am. Riding the waves. Staying on top of each crash even when the bow would submerge into the sea. This is my life! And so far, I remain on top of the waves though there were times when I knew that I was drowning. But in each instance, I have risen above the crashing things in my life.

And I looked at the first mate and we laughed. And I raised one hand in the hair and we high-fived one another. And that was a holy expression of thanks that I remain in the bow, staying on top of the crashing waves of my life.