Victims, Villains, and Wanderlust

8/1
Saw the Yankees. It was just about everything one could ask for in a trip to Yankee Stadium. They set the stadium record for home-runs with eight. The crowd was electric. It was about the loudest I had ever heard a crowd at a baseball game, though my background as a Royals fan is a handicap in that category. I think if I had been born in New York I would be a Yankee’s fan myself. There is something a bit magic about being in a stadium with so much tradition and energy, and seeing a team that fields half a dozen future hall-of-famers every game. But, alas, I am a Kansas City boy and hate the Yankees. Maybe even more so after today. Views of the Stadium, and A-Rod at the bat, going for number 500.
In the afternoon I walked to Ground Zero. It was powerful, as if the grave caverns stretched out and over the surrounding block, creating still sanctuary amid the energy so palpable throughout the rest of the city.
I was overcome with sorrow as I peered through the chain link fence and into the hole left where the towers once stood. The last time I was here was ten years ago with my family. We had bought lunch from street vendors, sat in the inter-tower pavilion and watched a big band play old standards. Now it was debris, and men in hard hats, and onlookers, still reverent after nearly six years.
What I felt more than anything else was that sorrow. Not a surprising feeling to be sure, but what followed was another, more painful type of sorrow. Where the first wave of sadness came in response to those who lost lives and loved ones in the attacks, the second came with the acknowledgement that this was small potatoes compared to attacks in the like of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden, the campaign in Vietnam, to mention only the worst of those we inherit and must account for.
There is a fine line between “terrorism” and “war.” That is not a new idea. Neither is the fact that the victims and the villains each draw their own line. What troubled me is how quickly roles switch, and villains and victims exchange hats without a second thought.
Religious fanaticism is one of the most destructive, detestable, and obtuse forces on this planet. The second place entry is nationalism, and it is a photo finish. Both are diseases of the worse kind.
Across the street was the Church of St. Peter, undamaged in the blast and unofficial mission hub of the aftermath of the attacks. Workers came to the church to be ministered to mentally, spiritually, and physically, with the church feeding people, and offering the services of volunteer masseuses. Inside is a memorial to the post 9-11 ministry of the Church, which previously had simply been known for being George Washington’s home church.
The placards and signs described the efforts the parish had taken. I was struck when I learned that the church became an ecumenical worship hub in the truest sense, its worship services, prayer vigils, and Eucharist offerings being open to and attended by people of all faiths and denominations. What a beautiful image: all God’s children coming together, despite the different lenses through which they search for and view God, and, apparently, finding Him. Human beauty of the most profound type, of connection in the deepest way, of overcoming rifts so traditionally terrible and so seemingly impassable – especially when it was in the wake of violence triggered by the same rift.It was an exhausting day, but a good day. I needed it.

8/4
We’ve had good winds, finally. It had been hot and windless for the past month, with hardly a break. We had put in our time and were finally being rewarded. We made 11 kts coming into Nantucket Island yesterday. The blow is just as strong today. We have a shallow reef in our mains’l and are clipping along at seven kts.
Yesterday morning I spent three hours in Nantucket. It was plenty. What once had been a good, strong, working-class whaling hub had been systematically corrupted and robbed of anything resembling charm or spirit. As the whaling industry died out (a good thing to be sure,) the sailors and blue collar workers moved off the island and followed work elsewhere, leaving behind the wealthy ship owners to do with their private heap of rock and grasses as they saw fit, which meant creating a soulless vacuum of insular consumerism, pastel polos, and a general atmosphere of homogenous, lily-white financial exhibitionism. The ice-cream was good though.

8/5
Last night our watch underway was nearly perfect. We were on duty from midnight to 4am. Shooting stars were streaking through the black crystal skies, humpback whales were spouting and singing all around us as we clipped along in a fresh breeze, cleaving the black ocean beneath us and leaving a trail of neon phosphorescent krill behind us. All of this lit by a brilliant half-moon bright enough to read by.
I had a good conversation with Adam, the director of the Rocking the Boat program we have onboard right now. We worked ourselves up into a youth-worker fervor talking about all the intrinsic lessons tall ship sailing offers.
I think Nantucket topped me off. I am ready for a change of scenery. I miss the Caribbean. This summer, though it has been fantastic, many of our ports of call, minus Gloucester, parts of New York and Boston, and New Bedford, have seemed like places where the wealthy go to enjoy being wealthy without inconveniences like poor people. I’m tired of seeing a show made of the most meaningless of successes. I’m tired of seeing people work so hard and spend so much to insulate themselves from the rest of the world, and I am tired of feeling insulated from everything myself. I am ready to leave again, though I wish I could bring my friends with me.