Waiting for the Next Stage of the Journey
First published on July 29, 2020
For the last few weeks, maybe months, I've been meditating on a metaphor. It arose in a coaching session and has since spread into other coaching sessions, conversations, even poetry.
A ship is drawn up in harbour after a long, five-year journey. Drawn up in the harbour, the time is here for the crew to rest, and some of them are doing this, stringing hammocks between trees, visiting taverns, waiting for the call back to the ship and enjoying the time before then as well-earned shore leave. Some, however, are still on the ship, working hard, keeping everything perfect, doing work every day that doesn't need to be done while the ship is in harbour. No matter how often the captain tells them to rest, they don't. They keep working, getting more and more tired.
As my exploration of the metaphor has continued, two reasons have emerged for this.
After five years - perhaps longer - of hard work, they are just so used to working, that truly resting, for an unknown amount of time, is alien to them. When you've been holding on tightly to something for a long time, the muscles don't relax when you tell them to, they are held by history into the gripping action.
Then there is fear. The crew know that the next stage of the journey won't need them in the way they were needed in the previous stage. They know that the captain is waiting in the harbour for a reason. He is waiting for a wind. Not just any wind, but the right wind, the wind of change, the wind of spirit, of destiny. God's wind.
And the crew are scared. If they leave the ship, if they stop showing what they are here for, the skill and strength they have been developing over many years will be forgotten, or devalued. They will be left behind, unnecessary. And so they strain, every day, to remind the captain of the importance of their work. And to keep themselves safe, to keep their place in the ship's crew. And to make sure they aren't left behind when the wind comes.
Of course, the captain would never leave his men behind. He knows that the wind, when it comes, won't always be easy to ride, won't always be perfect. He knows that the strength and skill of the crew, forged in battle over the last five years, will be needed to ride this wind, when it comes. More than that, he knows that he will need his crew rested. That when the wind comes, he will want every member at their best. And to be at their best, they need to rest. Because the journey has been hard, and they are only human.
On the next stage of the journey, no one will be left behind. The ship may, indeed, pick up new crew in the harbour, with new skills, and the crew may be called on to grow, to change, in the next part of the odyssey, but everything that has come before will be needed on the next stage of the journey, and more.
The captain doesn't know how long they will be in harbour; it may be weeks, months or years more. And so he knows that it is important that the crew rest. He has tried telling them, asking them, cajoling them, tempting them. But in the end, the message that seems most likely to get through is:
Good job. You have done amazing work. We couldn't be here without you. And I promise, we won't leave you behind. We will need you for the next stage of the journey. But we will need you rested, clear-headed and ready for anything. So take the time to relax. You deserve it.
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You know, of course, that every part of this metaphor is a part of me. It is a metaphor for growth, for development, for the changing of times and stages in our lives, for the transcending of our former selves and the including of our past selves as we step into the future that destiny is calling to.
And so, we - you, I, the captain and the crew - we wait.