Sailing Upwind: Finding Ourselves

In a recent post, I wrote about sailing upwind as a helpful way of imagining how we do science, on the one hand, and how we reconcile faith and science on the other. I tried to show that we get at what is true and real obliquely, not by sailing directly into the wind but by sailing across the wind first in one direction and then in another (called “tacking”). By this step-wise motion we make our way forward.

Finding ourselves is also like sailing up wind.

Think of the true and happy you as “up there”, to the north—mysterious and (hopefully) worth discovering, but not readily accessible. You won’t find yourself, I don’t think, if you head due north, making that quest your primary aim in life. You will need to aim at other things—to “tack” across the wind.

For some of us letting go of the urgency of finding ourselves is difficult. I belong to that group.

I received many kudos in my youth, and, combined with my status as an only son (my three sisters complained at times of special treatment), these led me to expect that I would inevitably find satisfaction and recognition wherever I landed in life.

This didn’t happen.

Here are some stories.

I had just finished preaching what I thought was a decent sermon at an evening service and was presiding over a time of interaction with the congregation. A parishioner rose and spoke:

“I just have to say that the sermon I heard this morning was the best one I have every heard.”

He was referring to my boss’s message from earlier that day.

Here I was, fresh out of the pulpit, standing in front of the whole congregation, as this fellow spoke past me to give praise to the other guy. This sort of thing happened more than once, and it was hard to process.

Years later I moved to Manhattan with the encouragement of a friend who was leading a thriving congregation there and was eager to see his efforts multiplied. He warned me that his prominence in the city might make my efforts challenging, but I came anyway, leaving a suburban setting where I had become reasonably well known. I immediately plunged into distressing obscurity, made additionally difficult by the choice that many in my part of the city who knew about my efforts chose to attend my friend’s (more distant) church instead of mine.

Why, I found myself griping at times, must I always be under someone’s shadow. And God kept saying,

“Stop worrying about that. ‘Tack’ away from your own validation and steer simply toward loving whoever I give you to love. I’ll take care of the other stuff.”

Slowly (think decades—our bad habits can run deep) I have learned to be more content, to be happy simply to undertake whatever task God has set before me at the moment, regardless of how much traction it gets. I have been learning, in other words, that what really matters in life is faithfulness, not success. Along the way I have “found” myself more fully and have gradually seen a better me emerging.

Jesus said, He who seeks to save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake will find it.