A lone shrimp boat trolled its nets at the far end of the horizon of the sea today. The ocean was flat and the blazing sun shone on it creating a glistening yellow sidewalk on the water that ended at my feet standing in the surf. My gaze was on the shrimp boat which was dipping from side to side as it made its way.
There was nothing else out there. No cargo ships lined up to come to port. No pleasure boats making their way from the north end of the island to the south end. No jet skis rushing out and back for no apparent reason. No paddle boarders standing on the water as though they were Jesus with a stick to keep them steady.
There was just the lone shrimp boat.
Trolling by it’s self.
With a captain likely desperate for another catch so that he or she can keep paying the bills; praying to God that she will allow those nets to be filled again. Please God! Please! Let there be shrimp on a day so flat and so hot that I know that they are all in the coolness of the bottom. Please!
It brought tears to my eyes and caused a lump in my throat. And I thought it the most beautiful sighting of sad that I’ve witnessed in a long time.
And I have witnessed a lot of sad in thousands of other people’s lives because my career has been managing sadness. Lately there has been a great deal of sadness in my own life which I thought I was immune to but in the end, I’m just like every body else.
When I started writing these daily musings a few years ago, I intended for it to be work related instructions that I hoped would be helpful to others trying to do good things in their jobs.
Then I started writing about the lives of the people that I interacted with every day and the musings became more personal. I was telling other people’s stories; incredible stories or triumph and tragedy.
As long as the stories were about poor people it was ok. They brought in money to Union Mission because people were moved by them to write a check and send it in. Often times they included hand written notes saying how the story had touched them. More that one made their way to the Sunday-School room included as part of that week’s lesson.
But then I started writing about me too; of loneliness in the night; collapsing in the wet sand of a low tide because sadness filled who I was. I wrote about chasing serendipity with everything within me because she represented so much hope for a better tomorrow. There were hearts that washed ashore and the most wonderful deformed Tiny Dancer in St. Martin. I wrote about getting drunk with friends in Athens, Georgia and how that can sometimes bring healing to a life.
The people at work grew increasingly uncomfortable when I wrote about me. It was crossing a boundary line that was taboo in the work place. Personal matters are to be kept at home. When you clock in, your personal life doesn’t matter. It is just about production or profits or in my case making certain that there were enough donations and grants coming in.
Like the lone shrimp boat on the sea today, I thought about how everything that I’ve ever done has been way out there like that. No other boats are on the water but there is one believer out there and I love her for it.
If I’d ever cared too much about boundaries, Union Mission would never have become what it did. When the boundary lines that I was crossing were personal ones however…well that isn’t the way that it’s supposed to be done.
So now other people can do it the way that it is supposed to be done.
I’m with the Captain of that shrimp boat.
