I don’t usually entitle something with a foreign phrase, especially in a language I don’t know. But today is different: Somos el Barco, which is Spanish for “We are the Boat.” I know a few words in Spanish and can pretend to read a little of it, mostly because it shares some words with French. In our own country, we hear a great deal of Spanish being spoken. In the last calendar year, I have been in California and literally right on the Texas-Mexican border. In those places, one hears Spanish almost without ceasing. I vowed if I lived in one of those two states, I would immediately begin learning that language.
I heard the phrase, somos el barco, in a rather odd place, it would seem to most people. I was reading about the closing of the annual conference of LCWR, an acronym for Leadership Conference of Women Religious. This is an organization of the leaders of almost all of the Catholic religious sisters---read nuns---in this country. I find these women to be remarkable in many different ways. I am glad to call many of them my friends. They are supporters and challengers to me to be a better person of faith.
In so many ways I find these religious sisters to be prophetic. They are serious in their commitment to follow Jesus and to live in ways that they think he lived. Indeed, their lives are witnesses. I want mine to be more significant as a witness. In their closing sessions, the leadership team outlined three areas for their future ministry. These areas are biggies---really life and death issues. They are racism, pandemic and climate change. I love the descriptive phrase they chose to describe our current situation in the world. They called it a “crucible moment.” In this crucible moment we are creating a future that may or may not be viable for human beings.
They were being led by Sister Jayne Helmlinger from Orange, NJ. But it was the tag line and organizing theme that struck me: Somos el Barco. If you are into music, you may remember this is a song performed in the early 90s by Peter, Paul and Mary. They sang it with some lines in Spanish and other lines in English. I had to go back to a YouTube link to hear them sing it again. I would like to share some lines from the song as a way to share in the conference of religious sisters and to give all of us a nice image for going forward in our work in this crucible moment.
I will skip the Spanish, since I don’t really know it and most readers won’t know it either. The chorus line reads, “We are the boat, we are the sea, I sail in you, you sail in me.” This makes a great deal of sense to me when I understand the God of love to permeate all of reality. In that sense we can be both the boat and the sea. We are both part of the sea itself, which in a way represents the fullness of God. And I am confident the writer of the song, Lyman, sees each of us individually, but together in the boat. You are one and I am one, but together we are also one. We share the sea and we share the journey.
The next line says, “The stream sings it to the river, the river sings it to the sea. The sea sings it to the boat that carries you and me.” We are in the boat being carried by the river to the sea. This says we are making our journey through our individual lives, but making it together. That is why things like climate change and the pandemic are group or corporate affairs. We are in it together!
The next line tells us, “The boat we are sailing in was built by many hands. And the sea we are sailing on, it touches every land.” This surely affirms it is a global journey and the concerns are global. No one will save himself or herself. Together we will work and together we will be saved. There will be a place for grace, just as many hands built the one big human boat.
The final lines are a call to courage. “So with our hopes we set the sails, And face the winds once more, And with our hearts we chart the waters never sailed before.” Reading these lines make me feel like I am hearing a spiritual pep talk. Come on guys and gals! We can do it. We set sail with hope. Don’t despair. Don’t fret.
We face the winds. Ah, the blessed winds will carry our boats to their destined goal. This is an exciting image for me to ponder. I love that the religious sisters chose it as their them and caused me to remember a song and apply it to my life in a new way. It is a great theme to think about the big issues that face us in the crucible moment. I want to ponder it more and figure out a way that I can incorporate it into my work of bringing students and all others into a concerted effort to make our world something that God can honor.
Those of us who have read theology or, perhaps, those who are people of faith and are old enough might well recognize this title as a reminder of the late Jewish philosopher and theologian, Martin Buber. I remember reading Buber’s book, I and Thou , when I was in college in the 1960s. It was already a famous book by then. I am not sure I fully understood it, but that would not be the last time I read it. It has been a while since I looked at the book. Buber came up in a conversation with a friend who asked if I had seen the recent article by David Brooks? I had not seen it, but when I was told about it, I knew I would quickly locate and read that piece. I very much like what Brooks decides to write about and what he contributes to societal conversation. I wish more people read him and took him seriously. Brooks’ article focused on the 2016 contentious election. He provocatively suggests, “Read Buber, Not the Polls!” I think Brooks puts
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