BUOY e102 Re-Release — Still Rowing … Big Ocean, Bigger Footprint (originally published Jan 11 2023)

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Welcome to Buoy, a Life in Deeper Water podcast. Episode 102.  Still Rowing … Big Ocean, Bigger Footprint (originally published Jan 11 2023)

Hello human.

This is part 2 of “I Woke Up Rowing Across the Ocean”.  In Episode 14, I talked about the rhythm of rowing with a Monday mentality, that for me it is not about feeling depressed, disappointed, or lost. It is about being driven, determined to move everything forward, at all costs. Not just any rowing, but rowing across a spiritual ocean, a long-term spirit-commitment.

And controlling who is in my boat with me. Who swells the sail.

I also told you that I couldn’t advise you that it is impossible to row across your spiritual resolution, your “Sea of Human” on your own. I couldn’t assure you that it is not a solo act. Because it wouldn’t be true.

Because of the answer to this question, “Has anyone ever rowed across the ocean with just oars?”

300 Humans, John, and Two Oars

Turns out, there are over 300 humans who have rowed across oceans, solo and otherwise.

Let me tell you about John… but first, to be transparent, I am still rowing. I am. It takes me awhile to break my rhythm and listen to God. It takes me a while to let Jesus back on my boat. Even when I know Jesus can see me straining with my oars, even when He is walking toward me, even when David said that we have an “ever-present God, long before Jesus walked on the earth.” I turn away from these divine assurances as if I am a tide beholden to the moon.

I bare witness to this because it is possible that you, too, continue to row when you know yours should not be a solo row. That we row together, but separately. Like the 300 who ocean row with a fierce determination.

AFTER 209 days at sea John Beeden became the first person to row solo and non-stop across the Pacific Ocean, from North America to Australia. Mainland to mainland. 2015. John was the man who climbed painfully ashore in Cairns, Queensland, on December 27, the man who resembled a human skeleton. He weighed 131 lbs.

And this father of two from Sheffield had already rowed singlehandedly across the Atlantic. With the second fastest time.

Atlantic John said:

After 2-3 weeks rowing, he started to feel at one with the boat,

That rowing 13-14 hours per day, it seemed to get easier and easier.

At the end of his journey, he was disappointed, because it hadn’t been as hard as he thought it would be, that he should have tried for more.

He sold the boat to keep from doing something stupid.

Yet he ended up building a new boat with a better design.

Pacific John said:

On his first day out from San Francisco, at 15 miles from shore, he saw the same buoy with sea lions four times, because the tides were so strong it was very difficult to get out.

He was rowing through the strongest El Nino year in the last 15 years; he rode against wicked currents

AND he was cutting across the Southwest trade winds that push you north away from where you want to go.

Pacific John said that rowing through the equator was a swirl of countercurrents:  he rowed 36-40 hours on 20 minutes of sleep; rowed 1200 miles across a countercurrent, like a never-ending rip current at the beach.

Pacific John said:

• rowing three hours on the spot was better than going backwards.
• he felt more connected while rowing because people were interested in his journey, were reaching out
• he even connected with an old friend after 30 years, while rowing
• he rowed for three weeks with a broken rib; rowed the last 90 hours with 7 hours sleep

Upon final approach, John rode against current for 8-9 hours, then within 10 minutes the tide had turned, and he rowed into mainland Australia.

In all, he owed one third of the earth’s circumference; the second person to ever cross the equator solo.

Sold his boat, and then tried to buy it back; at the time, his daughter wanted to row the Atlantic with him; then, maybe the Indian Ocean.

At times he was forced to row hundreds of miles just to regain his original position and he came close to quitting.

When asked his motivation for attempting the crossing of the Pacific at a relatively advanced age he included “just to feel alive and in control of my own destiny” and “putting something worthwhile on my headstone.”

“Only ever do it once in your life,” was John’s advice about his journey.

Making the Journey Alone 

I do not know John Bedeen. From video clips he seems a lovely, unassuming, very determined man. I tried to find out about his faith, because I could not imagine experiences like his without drawing incredibly close to God, our Creator. But he has not publicly shared that if it is true. I hope it is.

But what has filleted my perspective is how his experience, and the whole rowing thing, captures so much of what I feel when I make the journey alone. Even when God lays out a spiritual feat for me that takes me to an undiscovered mainland, I get caught up in rowing.

If I were asked my motivation, if WE were asked our motivation, for attempting to cross a spiritual ocean of our own, would we be trying to prove control of our destiny? Put something worthy-of-the-world on a piece of cement that stands in a place rarely visited? Is that the destination?

We can go solo and accomplish impressive feats, even those God originally laid out for us. God has made us amazing that way. But it won’t be the journey He intended.

And not unlike Rower John, I lose ground, and have to row frantically—faster human faster—to just get to where I was when I was letting God sail my dream. Like John, when I row solo, I can row for three hours on the spot and think it is better than going backwards.

And not unlike John, I sometimes sell my spiritual boat, aka abandon it, to prevent myself from continuing to row.

And not unlike John, I try to buy my boat back, my spiritual resolution, God included.

Proverbs 19:21

21 Many are the plans in a person’s heart,

    but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

Paul wanted to sail straight to Rome. It took him two years to do it. He was shipwrecked along the way, Under house arrest when he got there.

Jonah ran from Ninevah and ended up in a whale.

I have to give God control of my dream. His purpose overrides my plans. If I don’t, I will do it on my own, by my own folly.  And as Cowper tells us, at the expense of losing all my toil. That’s worse than losing my phone.

Did I tell you; I am rowing? But it is not a solo act. This rowing. It’s finding the divine rhythm, the pace, the distance, the sail of it, each day.

Sometimes rowing three hours on the spot, if that is God’s breath on me, is better than abandoning the mission. Sometimes sustaining is everything. Being one-minded for God in that moment is it.

It is not a good thing for me to wake up rowing. When I do this, I am alone. The first thing I should do every day is make sure that God is in the boat. Before the oar goes in the water. No, really. Sounds too simple.

Created To Row

I’d prefer God hide my oars. But since I am created to row, it is enlightening to hear about John’s journey. Because his story is really about the ocean I am crossing. The ocean you are crossing.

I want my journey to happen over and over again. John’s story helped me.

I mentioned William Cowper’s work in the last episode. So, the origin of our reference that “God works in mysterious ways” comes to us in the first stanza of Cowper’s poem, Light Shining out of Darkness.

BY WILLIAM COWPER

1

God moves in a mysterious way,

His wonders to perform.

He plants his footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

He plants His footsteps, a divine imprint on a turbulent sea. No one else does that. Everyone drowns, given time.

You CAN cross your “Sea of Human” as a sole rower.

You can also believe in Jesus, give your life to Him, but still try to make your journey alone.

But rowing while His breath is swelling your spirit is how we “ride upon the storm.” In His footsteps on the sea.

When We Feel Strong

This is not about depending on God when we feel too weak to weather the storm. That happens to me too. But far less often.

This is about when we feel strong, ramped up, when our pride in what we are capable of doing by God’s grace gets the best of us.

And we throw God overboard. Well, that seems harsh. Maybe just disconnect from the reality that He is swelling the sails. I won’t speak for you. I throw God overboard. I disconnect. So I can row alone.

Learning about the culture of ocean rowing is not about jumping on the fitness trend; it has illuminated something I have long known about myself, that I hadn’t named. Until now. What to do with strength. This mental athletic stamina. It is a critical part of my witness, my faith, that gift from God that is uniquely mine.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

Strongholds. That seems like when I use the gifts and skills God has given me, on my own, motivated by my own reasoning, pride and “pretention that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.”

Stronghold.

What does it mean? What’s the context? And what happens when what starts as a powerful, singular purpose from God, becomes a labyrinth of Kathryn reasoning. Your reasoning.

To hear about John’s journey:  John Bedeen ocean solo row