Lost at Sea
The wind was robbed from my sails.
This week leaves me feeling like a cautionary example from Steven D’Souza and Diana Renner’s work. A twisted mess of dashed hopes, overconfidence, and an undistinguished identity. A six month journey with positive signs all the way quickly shattered by a single, rote e-mail notification of “another candidate.”
Groping in the dark, I print off images of the grief cycle, see the word “new” with “new plans” and “new hopes” and a falteringly spark of hope. But it quickly fizzles.
I hesitantly trust the semester’s reading plan as a sovereign guide. Baptized in a moment into a season of Not Knowing and Not Doing…I thought I knew more than the occasion revealed. D’Souza and Renner pen, “Realistic confidence doesn’t get us in trouble, but its bedfellow, overconfidence, does. Overconfidence is a bias where we inaccurately perceive and assess our judgement and abilities as being overly positive” (39, Not Knowing).
The rest of the readings provide the way on. I am forced to trust God is making me more Anti-fragile – I will bounce back, by his grace. I will somehow grow better through this discipline. I also long to be a leader embodying a non-anxious presence, living without a Failure of Nerve. Self-differentiated from others and my work. “If we cannot distinguish ourselves from the role we hold, we are likely to place too much emphasis on our work at the expense of who we are outside of the role, investing too much of our sense of self-worth in it. This is dangerous if we suddenly lose our job” (75, Not Doing). And finally, I limp in my story as the Hero with a Thousand (and one) Faces, stepping over the threshold into the truly unknown with battles, and loss and love still ahead. In that moment yesterday, these books became not just texts, but maps.
“The wind was robbed from my sails” is an interesting sentence. It hints of blaming (step 2 of the grief cycle), but the use of passive voice indicates we don’t know who performed that action – who robbed the wind? While I have had images of those to target, I hear a faint whisper, “Don’t go down that path.” I get the fuzzy image perhaps this isn’t the wind robbed form my sails, but me laboring in the belly of ship. Oaring and padding, oaring and paddling, until Someone breaks my oar and gently points out the sails above.
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Steven D’Souza and Diana Renner, Not Doing: The Art of Effortless Action (New York: LID Publishing, 2018).
Steven D’Souza and Diana Renner, Not Knowing: The Art of Turning Uncertainty into Opportunity (New York: LID Publishing, 2016).
About the Author
Shawn Cramer
6 responses to “Lost at Sea”
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Friend, my heart is hurting with yours. That space of sitting in a boat no longer powered along in the direction you were sure it was going is super hard. Over the years, Seminary has been a great source of comfort to me as God gave dreams, led me along, and then changed course. My classes provided the context and content for me to navigate the dead waters, stormy waters, or just straight up shipwrecked mess on the shores. I am so glad you are finding comfort through the voices in our texts. I pray you hear our words of comfort, too. I cannot even pretend to know the mind of God, but I do know that in our grief and dismay, we are never alone. I’m here. I see you. I know how much you were looking forward to new possibilities. I stand with you, trusting your perspective or situation will change when the time is right.
Shawn,
Stay the course, trust the process. My heart aches over your disappointment.
Masterful threading of so many of our texts into your post. Though we look at much of life with oars in hand we do often forget the sails are nothing more than a mechanism to capture the wind. Could be that part of Not Doing is releasing the need to constantly strive? Maybe this is your time to expand the sails and capture the wind that you have been oaring against?
The road goes ever on, my friend. The hero’s journey doesn’t stop in the pit of trials, but goes ever on to a moment of rebirth and triumph. What paths they lead is different, but there is a moment of trust where the wind breaks and the eye of the storm surrounds us. The waves cease to rock and the sun begins to shine.
“Roads go ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.” – Tolkien
Lifting you up, brother.
Hey bro.
I’m sorry.
And I’m eager to see the new horizons that the sail that will billow again soon will power you toward.
With hopes dashed, how do you now approach the work at hand within your existing role with presence and passion?
Truly sorry to hear your disappointing news. Will keep you in my prayers.
Your sailing metaphor hooked me. It’s amazing how many things can change in the blink of an eye on a sailboat. Wind speed. Wind direction. Water currents. Equipment. Weather. It’s also humbling because sailing reminds us just how much we don’t and can’t control.
Shawn, thank you for being open with us. Real. Here for you, bro. And, along with our little family here, praying for your heart. God knows (Trust).
Be still, bro. Psalm 46:10. Listen close.
Thankful for the person you are!
There’s so much more to come.