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A vision to inflame the heart:*
“How long have you been sailing?” Rob Davis and his unassuming, 55-year-old
father were asked.“This is our first time,” they confessed, while being swayed this way and that, icy needles of rain cutting into their skin.
“Must be Americans,” the Canadian guessed.
The swell of a movement that shapes the world,
I doubt he meant the comment as a compliment to their faith that they could survive the Antarctic twenty-two day working voyage. This was not a cruise – no – this was a “cold, wet, strange food, hanging on for dear life, sailing in a Force 9 gale at two a.m. adventure without any shortage of ways to make the trip crazy.”
And waves that end in places beyond number.
I had to know two things: Why would you leave sunny Arizona with all of its urban conveniences for the Antarctic, and what did he gain from the experience, especially on a spiritual level?
We have no power to judge them;
Turns out this normal looking young man in our choir with his charming Alabama accent and engaging smile is not all that “normal.” This rocket scientist during the day is a risk taker. He has his pilot’s license, has “jumped out of a perfectly good airplane” (hopefully while not flying it), and has descended into antiquated dark mine shafts.
The waves roam where they will.
When he read about the expedition aboard this century-old Dutch sailing ship, he quickly made plans, his enthusiasm winning over his father’s good sense.
A hidden continent,
Full of undiscovered wonders;
A mighty fortress, yet vulnerable –
As Rob told me about his experience, his eyes danced in the wonderment of it all. He apologized for not having adequate words to describe it, saying that he and his father frequently looked at each other and quoted the movie Contact: “Should have sent a poet.”
We who sail are mere visitors, mere passersby;
We live only at the pleasure of an indulgent Deep.
Turned out they did send a poet. A Dutch man named Pim put pen to paper, trying to capture the ethereal, often unsettling experience. Rob translated the Dutch into English.
Deception Island, a volcanic island where the sky was as low as an early fifties home ceiling – a sky pressed lower as the day progressed – proved the most powerful of experiences on this trip.
With every ripple we shrink inside ourselves,
And to behold the vast, unfathomable waters and live,
We all must know that we are but a drop.
One for all. All for one.
The bow plunges through the whelming sea,
And all our trembling.
The crew of the vessel trudged in total silence on the vacated place of extremes: stark black meets white. They hiked several miles, danger heard in the crunching and cracking of ice and volcanic ash.
We see such things as could not be expected or imagined,
It was as silent as a cathedral empty at dusk, seeming blasphemous to even breathe too loudly. A fog descended.
The heart is torn – to see so much
And yet so little.
Rob was frequently driven to pray, the environment beckoning him, the silence both oppressive and freeing. He felt closer to God on this island, skeletons of earlier lives partially revealing themselves; cemeteries in the ice ash, secrets held there frozen, and old unknown memories of souls lost.
A sound of music: Debussy, Elgar, Grieg.
A grateful heart sets sail for home.
Our beautiful liturgy and rituals that both ground us and
set us assail in our urban living were also felt in the silence of Deception
Island.
God’s hand touches us wherever we go – even in the still, isolated,
abandoned islands – of our world and within our hearts.
*Some of the Lines from
Observing The Drake Passage, original Dutch
by Pim van den Berg, translation by Rob Davis
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