By Pastor Craig Pederson
This is a blog about a boat.
Perhaps you’ve heard the old saying, “The two best days of a boat owner’s life are the day they buy it and the day they sell it.” For the past six years, I have looked back on my “buy it” day with great joy! But, I’ve also had varying levels of doubt, wondering if I had purchased the right one – or if I should have purchased one at all.
Let me explain.
In the spring of 2017, after several months of careful research, I bought a Crestliner Sportfish 1850 with an Evinrude 150 E-Tec motor. (If you’re not interested i specifics, just substitute “a boat.”) It was seven years old; it had minimal hours on the motor; … and it was beautiful. The minute I saw it, I had that special feeling that this would be the vessel that would provide countless hours of fun together with family and friends for years to come.
“A vessel can be a beautifully crafted item made of the finest materials, but its purpose is not to be known in and of itself.”
It was a bittersweet acquisition, however, in that it was made possible only by using some of the inheritance I received following my dad’s death the preceding year. Before he died, the plan was to get a boat so that he could teach his grandkids to fish and enjoy their recreational antics out on the water. But an aggressive form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma took him from us sooner than we were prepared for.
In his honor, we have had a ton of fun and relaxation on this boat. We are not a fishing family, but our kids invited friends to come and ride on the Super Mable (an oversized towable floatation device – think blow-up loveseat), or to kneeboard, or to just hang out on the water on a beautiful summer day. And, the boat always got a healthy workout during our annual extended-family weekends at a resort near my hometown.
FROM THE VERY START, these many joys were offset by many challenges that made me wonder if it was all worth it, or if I was really “qualified” to be a boat owner in the first place.
For example, on our maiden voyage, we had been cruising for less than ten minutes when the “low-oil” indicator on the dashboard started flashing and beeping. It turned out that the dealership where I bought the boat had not filled the oil tank (and I didn’t think to check it). Later that summer, a faulty oil sensor shut down the motor and ruined one of our few scheduled weekends at the lake, eventually requiring a costly repair.
The following summer, there was an embarrassing episode where I was distracted while unloading at a boat launch, and I mistakenly unhooked the boat from the trailer rope. As I backed into the water, the boat started sliding backward and the trailer tilted upward, sending the boat thudding down onto the concrete slab of the launch. This is a sound I would not recommend attempting to replicate.
“Before my dad died, we planned to get a boat so that he could teach his grandkids to fish and enjoy their recreational antics out on the water.”
And there were other humbling incidents, like when the Super Mable blew out of the boat on County Road C in Roseville – directly across the street from the Roseville Police Department. As we scrambled to get it off the road and back into the boat, a stern (yet quite amused) police officer came out to assist us and said, “Around here, we suggest you tarp your load.” That was a point well taken.
Then last summer, while on our annual family resort weekend, we anchored the boat on the shore and went up to the cabin for lunch. The wind turned and suddenly increased, blowing the waves in rather than out. By the time we realized what was happening, water had overtaken the back of the boat and it was swamped. A spontaneous family Crisis Response Team formed, and a dozen of us from ages 5 to 85 bailed it out with pails, kitchen pots, and drinking cups until it was seaworthy again.
So this summer, after using it only twice, we decided it was time to face our boat’s “sell it” date. Our kids are older and busier. I still have a job that requires me to work weekends (happily so!). And, the cost of storage, winterizing, recreational accessories, insurance, gas and oil, etc., just don’t outweigh the joys we’ve experienced. We still love the boat, but now we wanted someone else to be able to love it, too.
AFTER LISTING IT ON Facebook and Craigslist, I received a number of inquiries. One particularly interested person with whom I exchanged several messages ultimately said, “Thank you for your time in answering my questions. Really pretty looking vessel. Unfortunately, I cannot make it mine.”
This notion of a vessel has stayed with me. A vessel can be a beautifully crafted item made of the finest materials, but its purpose is not to be known in and of itself. It is meant to be a carrier of something else. Our boat was beautiful in our eyes, but more importantly it was a vessel of memories and relationships that gave us joy and fulfillment.
I sold the boat last weekend. In worship that Sunday, we sang this verse during the Offertory Hymn:
We raise our hands to you, O Lord,
Like empty vessels,
Oh, come to us and give us life
From springs where living waters flow.
(“We Raise Our Hands to You, O Lord” ELW #690, st. 1)
We, too, are vessels – beautiful in our own right, created in the image of God. But the highest fulfillment of our purpose and joy is when we carry the love of Christ that flows like living water to those who are seeking grace, or justice, or forgiveness, or belonging.
The buyer of the boat ended up being the guy who called it a “pretty looking vessel.” After I lowered the price to my “final offer” online, he responded almost immediately saying that he could make that price work. I’m grateful for our time with this vessel of joy and fulfillment. I hope it will serve the same purpose for his young family.