Lost at Sea

The way I describe it now is that I was lost at sea, in a dingy little life raft. Din-jee as in run down and gloomy. Not a dinghy as in a small boat. I was in a life raft. A din-jee little life raft.

A dinghy, the boat, has multiple uses. A life raft only one.

A dinghy, though modest in size and capabilities, is designed to move, whether by manual rows or an outboard motor. Its purpose is transport. It moves people. It moves supplies. It moves. It's designed to.

Life rafts, on the other hand, have only one purpose: provide safety. They float. They float in cases where you really want something that floats really well. And I was grateful and fortunate to be in one. 

However, if you're on a life boat, and you aren't a person prone to just floating around, you really come to appreciate the differences between the two and the impressive characteristics of a dinghy. 

Compared to life boats, dinghies are remarkably empowering.  They provide you with the capability to take action. To find your way. To explore. To progress.

But with a life raft, you're essentially waiting for someone to come by and save you. They're stocked with a few emergency supplies and they provide shelter from the elements. And that's a great thing as opposed to, say, hugging the side of a cabin door or other flotsam. 

But, when you're in the middle of the ocean, with no sight of land in any direction, with cloud cover obscuring the star map over your head (not that you could read it anyway), you're overcome with an incredibly powerful desire to do something.

In a dinghy, you can row. Even if it's aimless and ultimately hopeless, you're in the act of doing something. You're able to satisfy the need to try and stay alive.

In a life raft, you're sentenced to wait. You're waiting until you see something -- a passing ship, a rescue plane, the tip of a cape, or the reflection of a light house on the atmospheric canopy over your head. Only then will your action have any chance of doing any good. 

You can wave your hands in the air and yell at the top of your lungs. You can send up a flare, and hope someone sees it. You can perhaps light the whole thing on fire in a last ditch attempt to be seen. It might be in complete desperation, but it's something. Maybe someone will come to your rescue.

Or maybe not. Or maybe, not the type of rescue you're expecting.

Maybe there will be divine intervention. 

This was the case with me. (Stay with me on this). I don't state this lightly. I'm a skeptic. At best, I'd label myself an agnostic, perhaps one prone to atheistic tendencies.

But I have witnessed something more than chance. More than accident. As I sat tortured in my powerlessness on that life raft, an angel came to my rescue. A miracle occurred. My life was saved. 

To avoid any confusion here, I wasn't literally lost at sea. I'm forced into metaphor since the way I felt has the one determinant of being ineffable: it’s beyond the capacity to be directly described in words.

I had no direction. I didn't have a clue which way to go. There were no landmarks, no mile markers, no signs, no map. Nothing.

And then suddenly, he was there. Not He, but he. I'm not talking about seeing God or the Angel Gabriel or anything like that. I'm talking about a person. A real person. But an angel nonetheless. A person who listened. 

Mostly, that's all he did. He really listened. And he cared. I talked. A lot. I needed to. 

But I didn't seek him out. He just appeared. He came into my life without any intention or request on my part. Like an angel. Really. Poof. He was there. Like quantum entanglement. Spooky action at a distance. Again, ineffable, but I’m trying. 

In our conversations, he showed me that life is how I see it. My life raft could be more than just a life raft. Maybe it wasn't really a life raft at all. Maybe it was something more, if I just looked at it right. 

He was right. The world and the situation I was in was not at all how I perceived it to be. Or, more accurately, it was exactly how I perceived it to be, and I was choosing to perceive it as a life boat.

I started to make different choices. And things changed. They changed A LOT.

It didn't happen overnight, but with much silence, introspection, and patience -- with myself and with others -- more miracles started to occur. Small miracles, but miracles for sure. There are all kinds of miracles happening all the time. You just have to see them. I've come to expect them.  

As it turns out, I'm not in a life boat after all. Not any more. 

I graduated, slowly. 

I took action. I didn't have oars, I had hands. I could wade my little craft. I didn't know which way, but -- a breeze was blowing so I went with that. I found some oars. 

I started to move faster. I caught a glimpse of what might have been land. It wasn't. I kept going. The wind shifted, so I waded with it. Simply because it was easier, and I was still tired. Very tired.

So, I rested. A lot. I observed. I looked into the true nature of things. I got to know the breezes better. The patterns throughout the days. The nights. And then I'd start rowing again. 

It made all the difference, this divine intervention.

Now, I expect stronger winds. I don't just anticipate them. I expect them.

I'm putting up the sails. I'm learning to steer. I know the wind blows north, but I think I want to go somewhere else.  Maybe a a few degrees east or west of it. 

I suspect I can go faster. I could cut more sharply across the wind. Still honoring the source of power, but respecting my dreams and desires as well.  Maybe at some point I might even try going upwind just to see what it's like. Maybe there is something behind me that I missed entirely. Or maybe not. I'm taking it one moment at a time.

What I do know is I’m not in a dingy little life raft, and I’m not in a dinghy. It’s more. So much more. 

I suspect some day I might see that I’m sailing in a vessel that is beyond any of my wildest dreams. Far beyond.