Forces of Man

The dripping on his cheek woke him. It was not a great amount of water, just a steady drip, drip, drip, upon his cheek. John wiped the water from his face. Fully awake now, he wondered how he had managed to sleep through the clamor. He could not distinguish the sound of the wind from the sound of the waves. All noises rushed together.

John raised his head from the sack of wheat he had been using as a pillow. He felt dizzy, disoriented from the motion of the ship. He tried to stand, fighting the forces pulling him this way and that. Nothing was stationary. Everything in this world shifted about.

After several days at sea, John thought he had grown accustomed to the pitch and toss of the ship. This was more. This was something else. He must get on deck to see what was happening. He guessed from the sound of the wind or the waves it must be a sea storm.

John staggered across the hold, slamming his shoulder into a post here, dodging a sliding crate there. Like a drunken man, nothing was quite where he expected it to be. He seemed to make far less progress forward than he made to and fro, side to side.

He burst finally into the open anxious for a breath of fresh air. Instead, he faced a wind which took his breath away. He clung tightly to the hatch unable to discern if it was day or night, if the water pelting him was rain or ocean spray. Lightening flashed all around him, simultaneously. Thunder ripped the night.

He stumbled forward off balance, out of control. Grabbing ahold of the mast he looked up to see one ragged and tattered sail flying half loose above him. A trio of crewman still struggled to haul it in intent on completing their labor no matter how futile the task may be.

“Away from there, you fool!” John heard the captain’s voice ring out above the crush of the storm. “Do you wish to die? Get back below deck.”

John looked back to see the captain tying a rope about his waist. He stood beside the helmsman. Neither man looked frightened, rather they looked as men determined, concentrating all their effort on one single thing, survival.

John prepared himself to call back but before he could speak a wave crashed over the deck sending one sailor sliding or rather floating across the ship. He saved himself from a deadly fate by grabbing hold of the railing on the starboard side while the wave rushed over him returning to the sea. John needed no further admonition. He slowly, gingerly, moistly, made his way below.

It was unpleasant in the hold, stuffy and damp. Water appeared to be leaking in from the sides, spilling down from above, and coming up from beneath all at once, though the place was not flooding. Somehow the water flowed in and out in every direction.

The rocking of the ship was violent and churned John’s stomach. He curled up in an empty, dry corner where he could brace himself between the boards if he started to slip. As much as he had confidence in the ship’s strength and her captain’s ability, what he had seen on the deck had frightened him. The waves were growing taller than the ship, the wind vicious, the lightening, the thunder. The forces of nature were greater than all the powers of man. Could anyone endure such an onslaught?

John closed his eyes. He covered his head with his arms trying to mute the sounds of the furious sea. He could not bock out the motion of the ship. He could not cover up the sensation of unbridled tumbling through space.

John was a Christian man. He believed but he was not a praying sort of man. It was only when he could endure no longer, when he felt surely the ship would be dashed to pieces, did he whisper his plea to God. “Just get me through this, Lord. Let me survive this storm and I’ll do anything you ask of me. I’ll serve the poor. I’ll evangelize the heathen just let me live.”

He did not propose this deal lightly. It was not received lightly.

When the seas calmed and the sun broke through on the morrow, John was left with a different choice to make. He was a Christian but he had never been much of a praying man.