There Are Quarrels

How easily do divisions form? We human beings are remarkably talented at ways to separate ourselves into Us and Them, into the Good and the Right and the True and the Bad and the Wrong and the False. This can happen in a moment, for almost any reason under the sun.

Like, for instance, if one happens to be on a cruise, and one’s preferences are for the more subtle enjoyments of a more civilized age. With the exception of the lack of gyroscopic stabilizers, I’d be perfectly content sailing a century ago, as my favored amusements tend to involve sitting out with a view of the water before me, a book in one hand and a cool beverage in the other.

Or perhaps walking on the promenade for a post-prandial constitutional, gazing out at the distant horizon and Thinking Big Thoughts.

Best of all, listening to live music, as Rachel and I did most evenings. We’d settle in to listen to a Ukrainian classical trio, whose music was utterly delightful and gracefully selected.

But right next to the venue where the loveliest of music played, there was a casino, filled with the bingings and clangings of slot machines. Not that they were slot machines, technically, as nobody drops quarters into slots anymore. Instead, the spinning wheels are simulated, and the clattering sounds of coins cascading to jackpot are synthetic noise.

One evening, as the first movement of Ludwig’s Trio in C Sharp Minor began its vigorous dance between piano, violin, and cello, the pauses and intentional silences were filled with the nearby cacophony of mechanisms designed to clinically separate human beings from both time and their money.

I felt my enjoyment of the sublime music I was trying to hear soured by irritation. My internal monologue muttered at those hapless uncultured philistines, oblivious to Truth and Beauty, unappreciative of skill and training and subtle sensibilities.

This, I sniffed, is precisely why Western culture is failing and empty, as the clangour of blind predatory systems and the hoi polloi that know no better drowns out all that’s worthy and wise.

Those listening attentively were Us, and those pressing buttons like conditioned rats in a Skinner Box were Them, and Lord, but did I feel superior and self-righteous.  Which, of course, is a sign that I remain both a fool and a sinner.

Divisions form so quickly, and we are so very good at them.

The Groaning Table

To the East, as the sun was setting last night, I could see Cuba in the distance.  The day was overcast, and the seas calm, and as our cruise ship bumbled heavily southward, I and the thousands of other souls on board passed an island nation I've never visited, and may never visit.

That section of Cuba was, to my eyes and to the small binoculars I used to peruse the coastline, largely uninhabited.  It presented as one long stretch of tropical green.  No cities.  No resorts.  No visible villages or towns, at least not when we were close enough to observe in any detail.  At one point, a small sailing vessel was visible.  At another, a modestly sized lighthouse could be seen, a stark white slash against the thick foliage covering the mountainside.

Cubans, as a people, are strikingly poor.  Resources are hard to come by, and have recently become harder to come by, as our actions in Venezuela have cut off their primary source of fuel.   Without diesel from their Bolivarian comrades to fuel their power stations and generators, their already challenged existence...the average Cuban makes the equivalent of fifty dollars a month...will only get rougher.

This may or may not have been on the minds of folks sitting by the side of the shipboard pool, sipping on pina coladas, as the day grew dim and the shadows of the island slipped into darkness.

The next day we woke to find ourselves at port in Jamaica, in the little port town of Falmouth.  As we ate breakfast, our fellow passengers flowed off of the ship in a near endless stream, heading for tour buses that would take them to Ocho Rios or Montego Bay.  Our plan, for the day, was nothing more than to step off the ship for a little bit, for a short walk to an old Jewish cemetery.

Instead, we took a meander around the cruise port with an old friend who requires a motorized wheelchair for mobility, and then briefly wandered out into the areas of the town closest to the fenced and guarded enclosure around the dock area.  The moment we did so, the solicitations began, as one would expect.  Tour guides, folks hawking various and sundry arts and trinkets, offers for rides, musical instruments for sale, one after another.  It was a stream of need, pitch after pitch, reminiscent of every market experience in less-resource-rich communities.  

That need had, no doubt, been exacerbated by Melissa, the massive category 5 storm that hit Falmouth and much of Jamaica less than four months ago.  Falmouth lost it's clinic, school, courthouse, and countless other buildings.  There were churches with their roofs torn completely off, and almost every house showed damage.  Even the buildings in the port showed damage.  It was a hardship layered on top of a hardship.

Which may or may not have been front of mind, to those of us who just lined up for omelettes at the breakfast buffet.

Speaking Without Words

The strangest thing about going on a cruise is how much effort goes into making it seem like you’re not on a cruise. I mean, here you are, right smack in the middle of the ocean, the vast deep of our two-thirds Water World suddenly very much in evidence. In every direction, our little planet stretches all the way to the subtle curve of the horizon, and beneath you lies a deep that…if the shipboard sonar reporting is at all valid…extends for thousands upon thousands of feet.

The surface of the ocean is ever changing, going from near-mirror-smooth one day to great rolling swells the next, to thirty foot seas and spray that dances over the roiling foam-flecked chaos in a driving gale.

Inside the contemporary floating city, though, there’s often no evidence that this exists at all. Instead, there are off-Broadway shows and cabarets, shops and restaurants, bumpercars and lasertag and pickleball and hot tubs and arcades. In the belly of the ship, a casino straight out of Vegas, windowless and sharp with the scent of nicotine. It’s all bright lights and amusements, and unless the seas are high, you’d never know they are there.

I find the lights and the endless overstimulation a little much.

Out on my balcony late on the second night of the trip, I was looking out across the blackness. It was still cold, in the low forties, and as I looked out at the honeycombed expanse of other balconies, I could see no-one else outside. I was reflecting on this when a loud, slapping splash caught my attention. It sounded like someone had flung themselves from the sixteenth level of the ship in a bellyflop, and I peered into the waves to see what might be going on. The slap came again, a wet percussive report, and staring out into the darkness, I spotted the cause.

Racing alongside the ship at nearly twenty knots was a single large bull bottlenose, whose streamlined form was visible beneath the surface, lit ghostly by the false daylight of the ship.

It wasn’t riding the wake, but running fast and close and amidships. Every five or six seconds, it would fling itself from the water, soaring for a sleek moment in the night air. When it reentered the water, it would strike the surface with the flukes of its tail, and the sharp crack of tail on water would echo against the side of the ship.

It was clearly a display. It was clearly meant for us. Not that we were paying attention. 

As best I could tell, of the nearly seven thousand souls aboard the ship, I was the only one seeing it.

I’d read enough about dolphins to understand what that bull bottlenose was saying as I watched it race across the water. A tailslap, among dolphins, serves a number of purposes. It’s forceful enough to stun prey fish, so it can be used in hunting. In male dolphins, the tailslap is a territorial and threat display, a warning to unwanted intruders…dolphin and otherwise…that the dolphin is not pleased with their presence, and a show of force.

That big bull was not just any of God’s creatures, but an animal that is scientifically recognized to be more intelligent than most of the humans in congress. It wasn’t putting on an impromptu Seaworld performance. It was letting us know that our 175,000 ton ship did not impress it, and that we were disturbing the peace.

We weren’t listening, of course. We are so good at not listening, particularly when creation speaks without words. As I let myself back into my cabin, I found myself wondering just how loudly creation needs to speak before we start listening. How fiercely does the wind need to roar, how swift do the flames need to burn, how quick does the water need to rise, before it catches our attention?

I suppose we’ll find that out.

Cruise Ship Theology

As I look around at other pastors in the blogosphere, they're out there taking sabbaticals, or at least touring with church groups.

They're traveling through the Holy Land, treading out the very ground that the Apostles trod. They're feeling the brilliance of the Grecian sun as the dust from the ruins of Corinth fills their nostrils. They're feeling the water of the Jordan as it courses between their toes. They are establishing a deep sense of personal connection with the places and stories they know so well, so that they can tell them even more intimately upon their return.

Me? I went on a cruise.

To Behr-myoo-dah.

Me and the missus and the pups hopped on board the Explorer of the Seas last Friday, one of those great gleaming city-ships that stand as high above the water as Godzilla's armpits. It had four pools, and a seemingly infinite number of bars. It had so many bars that in some cases they were stacked on top of one another. In its immense gut, there was a mall...an actual mall...which was above the casino and right next to the ice-skating rink. It was a festival of gorging self-indulgence, from which I feel lucky to have returned only three pounds heavier. Urff.

Unlike a tour of the sacred sites of the Ancient Near East, it might seem that this seaborne temple of conspicuous consumption would be lacking any theological framework. This is not so. For me, everything is theological, even when my medications are working. This cruise was no exception.

There were a number of church groups in evidence. There was a gaggle of folks there to celebrate 170 years of "receiving God's blessings." That's what their t-shirts said, anyway. There was a cluster of men whose shirts were emblazoned with Jesus slogans which were either In Your Face For Jesus or suggesting that God Will Do Whatever You Ask Just Because He is so Awesome.

That first Sunday, there was a worship service on board. It wasn't in the chapel. The chapel, as best I can tell, is exclusively for on-board weddings, of which there appear to have been several. The worship service was described as "nondenominational," and was in the theater. Not the big theater. The slightly-less-big theater.

The worship service involved the ceremonial playing of a Joel Osteen DVD.

Perfect.