Sailing Into the Mystic....
Published by Ronald Steed,
Mystic Micro-Gospels; small spiritual stories in and around my neighborhood in Southeast CT
Paul had asked for an overnight vigil. I sat there to keep him company and the church open for those who wanted to stay with him a while. With Compline past and the mourners wandered away, this holy space was lovely and peaceful... its doors and windows opened-wide to welcome the summer cricket-sounds, the nighttime breeze, and the headlights of sleepy drivers whose carbeams walked up the center aisle to pay their respects. Before turning to go their way, these on the vigil-road could glimse Jesus within, His arms wide-open to them on the victory-cross, above the Paschal candle... awake and softly glowing over Paul.
Len came late with a sailor's gift. Paul's sloop "Thin Place" often skimmed the waters of Southeast CT, where for him, Heaven and Earth was never far apart. When he would return from sea to the Mystic River, running before the evening winds wing-on-wing, Paul would play "Into the Mystic" as loudly as he could, singing:
"Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
into the mystic...."
In another mystical thin place that night where Heaven and Earth was woven together, we sailors did the same....
