Away

Away ~ Away ~ 1/27/02...I was a real Sailor once...and the very last time I went to sea on an extended voyage, I left a wife and two small children at home. I loved being at sea...but I loved my family so much. I can remember vividly (it was November, 1979) the moment I said my final goodbye and turned away from my family to go aboard the ship. My heart broke in that moment and the scar still exists.... and so, when I came back from that cruise, I stopped being a sailor. The Navy chaplain aboard that ship was a friend of mine...and he told me that, in his experience, those leaving to go to sea for an extended period, and those left behind, all go through the stages that people normally go through when they lose a loved one to death... grief, denial, anger, and acceptance ... leaving your loved ones (or being left) and going to sea was like a little death... and the joy of going to sea is a little like intoxication .... is coming home from sea a little like resurrection? Perhaps. It can be a bit awkward coming back from the dead. But 0h, how I loved the "sweet intoxication" of going to sea! Aweigh the anchor, underway tonight! With changing tides of time I'm bound to sea, beyond the breakers, past the guiding light, into the depths of sweet eternity. Away to live my purpose I depart... again to wield the compass and the scroll. Away to feel God's presence in my heart, again to know His touch upon my soul. Steady is the push of life's embracing wind, so like a lover's touch, a velvet hand. Oh, grant me Lord, calm seas to journey's end, and grant my love a way to understand this drunkenness that seaward Sailors know... this sweet intoxication as I go. ~ © 2002 By: W.D.Neighbors ~