Sea Fever

Created by Landlocked Sailor 2012

A Wanderer's Song

A wind's  in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels,
I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;
I hunger for the sea's edge, the limit of the land,
Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.

Oh I'll be going, leaving the noises of the street,
To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;
To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,
Oh I'll be going, going, until I meet the tide.

And first I'll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,
The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,
The songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out,
And then the heart of me'll know I'm there or thereabout.

Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,
For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;
And I'll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels,
For a wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels.

"A Wanderer's Song" by John Masefield

Reconciling

rec·on·cile/ˈrekənˌsīl/

Verb:

Restore friendly relations between: "she wanted to be reconciled with her father". Cause to coexist in harmony; make or show to be compatible.

Lately, I have been having trouble reconciling myself to, well, myself.  I have moved around a lot in the last few years, living in New England, California, and below the Mason-Dixon line.  I teach high school during the academic year, and, for the last 4 summers, I have been hopping on a plane to teach sailing in the British Virgin Islands.  The thing is, I have a different set of friends from each place/job/setting, and I've found that it's practically impossible to explain the other places/jobs/settings to the other friends.  It's no fault of theirs, as I have trouble understanding my own dual personalities & lives. 

When I stop to think about it long enough, this struggle is not solely the result of my traveling and relocating.  It's a more tangible result of my deeper split personality.  Paul says:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  ~Romans 7:15-20

 So I have two parts of me: the old, sinful self, separated from God, and the new, holy self, fully reconciled to God.

You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. ~Ephesians 4:22-24

And the good news is that he can reconcile us to ourselves, and to each other, and to Himself.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
²¹ Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. ²² But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— ²³ if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.  ~Colossians 1:20-23