The Little Boat Sails again

I took the summer off from school for a mental break. Three years of study, every quarter, every semester, working a new job and learning about that, and trying to make the household run as it should… nope… time for a break.

Then, I threw a wrench into the cogs. Well, maybe the more domestic of you will better understand if I say, ‘I put a fork into the garbage disposal’. Yup, that’s it. I bought six laying hens.

Now, before I get you thinking I’m going to talk about the craziness of the summer that WASN’T a mental break, or thinking I’m going to talk about chickens, let me tell you here that this is about figuring out what I lost in all this entropy. (Sorry) Chaos.

I haven’t been sailing.

Sailing is my respite. Sailing is where I’m doing and thinking a thousand things at once about the boat, yet there is order and expectation that if one tiny change is made the boat will sail better, safer, even prettier. Sailing is where the din of the entropy wanes and the order of the Divine Initial Aims can be seen to be at work, in spite of all that we humans do to block it out in the name of our progress and civilization. Sailing is where I go to find my own Divine Initial Aim. And, when the torrents of the wind and the waves remind me there is such a thing as entropy, that even in nature there is a torrid of energy that pounds against me, I know and trust Lifeline because of all the time and effort I spend with her, keeping her strong, keeping her well, for just such moments. I trust my vessel. I trust the routine created in the times less torrid and less chaotic to see me through the other.

I was reminded of this indirectly and unknown to them. Carin put out a note on our yacht club’s message board she was looking for a small day-sailing boat to ‘dink around in’ on her weekend vacation with friends. I happened to have one sitting in my driveway…   sitting in my driveway for four years, waiting for me to get some time to fix her up and get her ready for sailing with, and I hope by, my grandkids. Some of them are old enough to do so, now. But, you know already, I bought chickens, and building a coop takes time, and money.

But seeing Carin’s request, I thought it would be nice to see the small boat used. I wrote her and she responded with all the glee one can see in a modern email/text message. We arranged to have her come by and see it. That meant I now had to make time to work on the sailboat. I came home on Monday and began power washing it. I started after supper and it was a cloudy night. Darkness came and I was still washing. I stopped, finally, when the lights from the garage door were brighter than the dark around me, and I could no longer see the boat.

Tuesday brought sunny skies and Carin was due at 6:30. I got home at 6:00 and pulled out the sails, laying them out for her to see. They were in fine shape. I draped the spinnaker sail, a greyish-blue, over the truck. It’s a fine cloths and laying it on the ground would damage it. The anchor, the lines, the equipment, all in decent shape save for the halyards left on the mast and exposed constantly. None-the-less, when Carin arrive and Regis followed, we three stepped the mast and rigged one mainsail. Cleaned up and rigged, she looked wonderful, my little boat, and that’s when I was reminded of what I had been missing.

The last real sail I had was back in June, under the full moon. I watched the sunset and the moonrise took photos with my cell phone cam and drifted about as the wind fell off for five hours. July brought a motor adventure with family aboard to watch the fireworks. Where July met August, I trailered Lifeline up to Lake Erie and sailed over to Bay Week on South Bass Island. For some, that might be a summer. For me, it was long walks in a hot desert between oasis’ and drafts of cool water. Last year I was on the water twice a week, including the afore mentioned events. Two years ago, I was on the water four times a week, teaching and racing and socializing. This year has been so different.

There’s time left to change all that. There are two weeks left in August, and two months, minimum, after that to spend on the water. There’s even time to go back to Lake Erie if I want to. Yes, I’m back in school. Yes, it has become even more intense at work, now that I have an idea of what my new job is supposed to be. Yes, the chickens need a yard to exercise in and windows, and their boxes filled with straw, and… well, you get the picture. And I’ve probably reminded you of your own chores by now. Stephen Covey told us in his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to take time to sharpen the saw. He meant to take a break from driving the machine of our labor to tend to the details that keep it running.

Not so oddly, we were told this long ago by a greater Teacher, “Thou shalt keep holy the Sabbath” yet even many of those professing faith forget and fill their Sabbaths as they fill the rest of the week. We need, we all need, to take a step back and let the wonder of the Divine Initial Aim reveal itself in our lives. God said, at least once a week, though we are called every day. He gave me a sailboat to use on that day, so I could spend time with the Ship’s Carpenter.

The little sailboat rolled out of my driveway Thursday evening, after we tested the hull for leaks. She still needs a few pins to fit the rigging properly. The halyards need soaked to clean them up. Some Sailkote on the blocks will make the pulleys run more smoothly. And the lights on the trailer need attention. These are all chores of love and relaxation. Carin’s enthusiasm will make those into a labor of love and she’ll have a good time with her friends on the boat.

Where will you make time this week to meet your Maker and learn or be reminded of your Divine Initial Aim? I wish you well in His presence. Pax Chrisiti

 

 

11:17 am 8-29-14

Carin texted me from Michigan “Pretty sure the rudder is still at your house.  Can you confirm?”  All the work, all the effort, all the fun we had…  she pulled the boat all the way to Michigan…  oh…   damn…”In the corner of the garage, nice and dry.”

Who’s your partner?

What do you think?  It’s a dangerous question for a person to ask.  It means an immediate commitment to listening and then working to understand what the other person really does have on their mind or what their opinion might be.  And if the person questioned takes the chance that the asker is serious s/he will soon know by observing the questioner’s eye contact and body language.  It can be a precarious situation for both.   It requires a semblance of trust, and will either increase or deteriorate the trust between the two conversers.

I’ll leave the question open from the start, anyway, and take a chance that you and I may want to take that step into trust.  So, what do you think about Divine Revelation?

Back in 2009 I was doing pretty well professionally.  I was working on the space shuttle and during my time at the space coast we had launched twenty-five missions to build the International Space Station.  My group managed the power distribution system on-board from the time we put the ships into their maintenance bays until the moment of launch.  Before and after those events we monitored the systems from a couple hours before until a couple hours after so we could support Mission Control in Houston.  Your imagination cannot go astray in considering how important people think it is to be able to ‘turn the lights on’ and anything else associated with electricity where the Space Shuttle is concerned.  I was personally at a high point professionally just by being associated with the engineers and technicians that accomplished the work to make these flights safe, effective, and efficient. The tragedy of Columbia only affirmed our need to commit to these goals more stringently.

Of course, this time was through the 2008 national elections and I’m rather opinionated in certain areas.  Frequenting the National Public Radio site and commenting quite often I had occasion to write and respond to articles routinely.  On the subject of working and welfare an argument was being carried out about the difference between those that can and do work hard and succeed and those that don’t and won’t, and why should they receive such lavish government support.

There was a short comment made to me. “Do you always get what you want?”  The question was in electronic form but it resonated in my mind and ears as though it were delivered with the blare of drums and bugles. Full of myself and the pride of a thirty-year technical career I went on for a dozen sentences about how ‘I’ had done so-and-so, how ‘I’ had accomplished such-and-such, and how anyone could do the same and stretch the limits of their talents.  And if one only worked inter-dependently collaborating with others exercising their talents, one was bound to be successful.  I closed the comment out and thought no more of it.

Of course, the 2008 elections brought Mr. Obama into the Oval Office and immediately his policy to close down the shuttle program went into effect.  Before the next year was out, I was taking a voluntary layoff from the dying program and moving with my wife to Ohio.  She was able to find work within two weeks.  It would be a year in the market before I would find permanent work again, and at a much lower pay level and activity level, with no other responsibility than what appeared on the incoming bench at the university electronic repair facility.  Truth be told, I sat around waiting for work to come round and that happened once every couple of weeks.  Each time I tried extending myself beyond my job requirements I was closed down.

I’d had successes and failures, even an event requiring some disciplinary action while in the Navy.  Always I was able to overcome   It didn’t matter what the situation was or how bad it appeared.  ‘I’ could always overcome.  This time was different.

It didn’t matter what ‘I’ tried to do or who I was talking with.  It didn’t matter that I was applying all that ‘I’ learned from Dale Carnegie, Og Mandino, Lee Iacocca, and Stephen Covey as well as other self-improvement/self-help intellects of the 20^th century.  I was constantly rebuffed or rejected, I had too strong a resume or too weak.  I would lose my head in one interview, not be able to think clearly in the next, and have a seemingly perfect interview that yielded no additional contact.  The work and access I would be able to acquire or accomplish diminished asymptotically until I know if I reached down I could touch the zero line on the graph.   I fought a depression and a sense of worthlessness.  Even in my volunteer time I was restricted by one or another event.  Nothing ‘I’ could do would yield success.

Three years after leaving the best job I ever had at Kennedy Space Center I received a call and then a call-back from Rolls-Royce Energy Systems.  I was skeptical.  I had no expectations.  In fact, my response to the call back resulted in confusion on the part of RR HR recruiting and extended the whole process over an additional month.  But with each call, with each interview, I let hope rise.  By August and after eight weeks of wondering when this would go the excitement from both me and my wife was palatable.

One morning I was reading my daily meditation and the Psalm was about a resounding uplift of the psalmist by God.  The future was about to be bright and all that was would once again be.  I shared this with my wife and the story of my NPR experience from 2008.  We just sat in wonder.  A week later I received an offer from Rolls-Royce that I accepted, and now in my second week  of working on the same types of equipment I’ve spent my life with.  I’m feeling quite at home in this turbine manufacturing environment.

Somewhere along the way in life I forgot I was in a partnership with Him, agreeing to abide by the call of Genesis and work to help Him manage this world He created. Twice my prayers for Him to ‘just come down and talk with me’ were answered in an unexpected way.  Once I was warned, and did not recognize the warning.  Now I feel rewarded, and remain humble for having heard His voice and recognized the extent of my pride.

The Catholic Church tries to put into words what Divine Revelation might ‘look’ like or how it might be perceived by each of us in the Vatican II Document Dei Verbum.  As in all attempts to formulate the Spiritual from human concepts, and as good a document as this might be, it just seems as though shaping the idea falls short.  There is nothing that can compare to personal experience with the Divine nor any way to express it so others can fully comprehend and resonate with it.  Yet, in such an experience as I have described, I know for myself this part of my life has been bracketed by God.

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The rigging is loose

Isaiah 33: 23  Your rigging hangs loose;

it cannot hold the mast firm in its place,

or keep the sail spread out.

One of the threads of life that makes sailing so wonderful for me is that the scriptures of the Judeo-Christian tradition are woven so well into it.

Yesterday was a terribly challenging day for me.  I’m working as an electrical/electronic repairman at a local university, so when a simple heater/fan comes in I should be able to fix it in under an hour.  But I didn’t.  I had the device apart, together, apart, together five times and finally broke a connection I didn’t think I could repair.  All the while the blood pressure is rising and the anger is boiling.  I’m getting more and more rough at the workbench, which is to say that I was beginning to hammer things, first with my hands and next with my screw driver (I don’t have a ‘crescent-hammer’, I work with electricity).  I was ready to use a sledge hammer if I could find one when my boss came over and asked if he could help.  I guess six hours of listening to me was enough for him.  Thirty minutes later the device was repaired and he handed it back to me for an operational test.

I didn’t stop there, though.  I went home with all that just festering within me.  I was planning to get ready to go sailing, trailering Lifeline to Lake Erie with my sister for the weekend.  Hooking up the trailer I discovered the lights weren’t working.  Looking under the truck’s bumper I found broken and corroded wires where there were supposed to be electrical connections.  Six hours later those lights still weren’t working.  And I was livid!  My wife tried humor and I just got more and more angry.  I couldn’t even figure out the correct repair with a $20 schematic I’d taken time to go purchase.  A simple circuit and this former space shuttle electrical test engineer still couldn’t fix the wiring.

Now, I’m a promoter of the ideas written down by many of the self-help gurus.  I favor the writings of Dale Carnegie and Stephen Covey myself.  Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich is a classic for me.  All these methods of conceiving an idea, believing in it, and working to achieve it match up quite well for me with “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it will be given you.”  But what happened to me that I can’t even conceive, believe, and achieve to fix a heat gun or trailer wiring?

I forgot to tighten my ‘rigging’.  In spite of knowing all I think I know and in spite of what I have done in the past I still need to continue to work to “conceive and believe” in the work of the Almighty.  Anger clouds discernment.  Frustration is nothing more than a fog to the mind.  Capitulating to these two creates a storm internally that will not let me see what it is I need to see to guide my life.

Last week I tuned my rigging on Lifeline to hold the sails better.  Today I’m reading scripture to tune the rigging of my principles, and to work to live better the faith I profess, and leave the anger and the frustration in the septic tank where it belongs.

And I think I can see how the lighting should work now, my mind illuminated anew with the Light.