OBIE, Episode Twenty-nine, SCRAP O’ SCRIPTURE

 

OBIE

Episode Twenty-nine

SCRAP O’ SCRIPTURE

Leaving the equatorial regions in our wake, we sailed at last into the brilliant blue North Pacific. The temperatures moderated, the humidity dropped, and Lidge and I began to sleep out on the deck. One night we were sitting with an old salt at his watch. The night was cool, and the moon had a golden ring. “Do you fellows see that ring?” the seaman asked. “Just count the stars inside that ring, and that’s the number of days until the rain.” “Oh, go on!” says Lidge. Well, this old seaman is solemn as a judge! He’s serious, and he goes on to tell us why. “Those stars,” he says, “are signs and symbols. It says so in the book. Why they’re just as plain as the nose upon your face!”

“Don’t you boys read your Bibles,” this old seaman asks? We both assured him that we do. “Well then,” he says, “You should be familiar with this little scrap of scripture here.” At this point this old seaman reaches into his Pea coat and gets out this miniature, leather bound copy of the Old Testament. He opens the tattered manuscript to Genesis chapter one, verse fourteen, and reads aloud: “Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and seasons, and for days and years.”

Well, he had us there! “Do you boys see that bright star right up there?” he asks, pointing to the North Star. Well, we’re both familiar with the North Star, so we both shake our heads in affirmation. “Well, that star,” he says, “together with those other bright stars there around it, make up a constellation which is called Ursa Minor, the little bear, or the little dipper. Polaris, the North Star, is at the end of the little bear’s tail. The big dipper over yonder is called Ursa Major, or the big bear. There are twelve major constellations, and Lord only knows how many others. Once you’re familiar with the constellations, you use that information along with the phases of the moon, and all this information together becomes signs. The signs tell you when to plant, when to reap, and a million other affairs of daily living. I don’t even plant a post,” he says, “without first checking on the phase of the moon, and signs.”

Well, to me signs don’t make no more sense than bathing once a week, but these old sailors believe they’re the greatest things since hardboiled eggs! Whether you believe in signs or not, there’s something about sprawling on your back on a cool, clear night, and staring into myriad twinkling lights, that tends to open your heart and clear your mind.

Some nights we’d lay there in the stillness, with the North Pacific rolling beneath the deck, and the only sound you’d hear would be the rhythmic beating of your own heart. You could almost hear the pulsing of your own blood, as it flowed within the channels of your veins. It was as though you sensed the waning of your own life, as the minutes and the seconds of existence ran their course and ticked away.

On these cloudless nights the stars were bright as campfires in the snow and thick as sparks when you stir a fire at night. Sometimes the moon had a golden ring, and if the moon were full, the sea glowed with a green translucence as its teaming fathoms rolled beneath our bow. On more than one occasion as we drifted in calm, we’d float along in the midst of resting whales. You could hear their steady breathing, and once in a while they’d blow, or a whale would roll and a giant leviathan arm, would reach into the moonlight just as though it were in prayer, as if to touch the very face of God.

To be continued?

By Shannon Thomas Casebeer

Copyright © FEBRUARY 14th, 2009