The Lee Shore
An NCCer send me an excerpt from the twenty-third chapter of Moby Dick that is so profound its cause vertigo. My head is spinning, but I've fallen in love with this overnight. I want to be like Bulkington. You may need to read this a few times or come back to it. I've highlighted the parts I love. And I share a few editorial comments at the end. Here's "The Lee Shore."
Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet.
Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities.
But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe! Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore? But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God--so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!
I'm not sure I understand all the metaphorical overtones in this passage, but it seems to me that truth is discovered on the open sea not in the port while you're docked. Too many of us want to remain on land or in port, but God calls us to a faith that navigates the open seas. Land is so stationary, so secure. But a relationship with God is more like a mariner trying to navigate while tossed and turned by the wind and waves. By the way, when did Jesus appear to the disciples walking on water? In the middle of the night in the middle of the lake in the middle of the storm. That's when God usually shows up! We need more spiritual Bulkingtons--people whose feet are scorched by the land!
One of my theological touchstones is Job 11:6: "True wisdom has two sides." To fit the analogy of this chapter. Truth has a port side and a lee side. I think truth is found in the tension of opposites. There is a rocking, like a ship being tossed and turned by the waves, that can cause intellectual seasickness. But the only alternative to the waves is being dashed on the land. "In landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God--so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than to be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!" God is shoreless! Here's to "landlessness!" By the way, Andre Gide said, "People cannot discover new lands until they have courage to lose sight of the shore."
Maybe you don't really appreciate life until you almost drown? Maybe it's in surviving the "perfect storm" that you really emerge a sea-faring Christian. "Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!" If you don't know what that last word means, don't feel bad. I had to look it up in the dictionary too :) Set sail!
Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet.
Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities.
But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe! Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore? But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God--so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!
I'm not sure I understand all the metaphorical overtones in this passage, but it seems to me that truth is discovered on the open sea not in the port while you're docked. Too many of us want to remain on land or in port, but God calls us to a faith that navigates the open seas. Land is so stationary, so secure. But a relationship with God is more like a mariner trying to navigate while tossed and turned by the wind and waves. By the way, when did Jesus appear to the disciples walking on water? In the middle of the night in the middle of the lake in the middle of the storm. That's when God usually shows up! We need more spiritual Bulkingtons--people whose feet are scorched by the land!
One of my theological touchstones is Job 11:6: "True wisdom has two sides." To fit the analogy of this chapter. Truth has a port side and a lee side. I think truth is found in the tension of opposites. There is a rocking, like a ship being tossed and turned by the waves, that can cause intellectual seasickness. But the only alternative to the waves is being dashed on the land. "In landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God--so better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than to be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!" God is shoreless! Here's to "landlessness!" By the way, Andre Gide said, "People cannot discover new lands until they have courage to lose sight of the shore."
Maybe you don't really appreciate life until you almost drown? Maybe it's in surviving the "perfect storm" that you really emerge a sea-faring Christian. "Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!" If you don't know what that last word means, don't feel bad. I had to look it up in the dictionary too :) Set sail!
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