The Mangrove and the Boat The boat was an older model Sea Ray that was held in a lift just off the left side of the dock down in Stuart Florida. Its paint was fading and the outboard had visible corrosion. It appeared to have been abandoned on that lift for years. In the middle of this 20 foot boat was a mangrove tree. It was growing from behind the controls and reached eight feet or so over the craft. It was a strange sight, but one I will never forget. The salt water in the tropical climate of Florida is a perfect place for mangroves to thrive, but the deck of a discarded boat is a most unlikely place for a mangrove to call home. I am trying to imagine how it all started. An accumulation of leaves might have decayed in the moist air, leaving a small bit of organic compost. Because mangroves germinate on their parent plant, a small, young, plant might have been blown off its roost and landed in the boat. It would have taken years for that little plant to become so large, but somehow it found a home on the top deck of an abandoned boat. Boats are meant to be in the water, not rest just above them. Boat lifts are designed for raising and lowering boats, not for permanent rest. Mangroves contribute to the ecological system of the estuaries of the salty water coast, but aren’t that helpful on the deck of suspended fiberglass. Regardless of how this tree found a home in this unlikely place, it did. Unlikely places can be great places on which to build your life. My grandparents met in a swimming hole and married two weeks later. That unlikely place gave life to three generations of Kales. Columbus’s mistaken Indian shore was a strange place to form a new nation, but it happened. Bethlehem was an unlikely place to give birth to the King of Kings, but it happened. However you ended up here, along the coast, it happened. You might feel like an unlikely candidate as a citizen of the beach life, but it happened. There are times where we feel as stranded and alone in this life as that old boat and that mangrove tree. But, within that strange relationship that exists in unlikely pairs and unlikely places. They are more together than they are apart. Alone, that mangrove is just one among many, but living on the deck of that boat, it stands proudly apart from the others. The boat might have been defeated by neglect, but as it houses the tree, it becomes a noble mansion for the life of the sea. I encourage you consider where you find your life and who you find life among. The beach life offers a place for misfits and loners as well as community leaders and healers. There is a place here for us to put down roots. We can join the boat in taking a rest from the labors of travel at life’s sea. We can become the safe place to nurture the life around us and to hold it up for the world to see. Today, recognize that the unlikely place may just be YOUR place. Love one. Love another. Jack
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 12:30:46 +0000
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