Rescue Me
Five people are trapped in a titanium tube on the floor of the Atlantic ocean, and I can’t get them off my mind. I am constantly checking my news feed. Sonar is picking up tapping sounds. Hope surges, then I read how unlikely it is that help could arrive in time.
In some real way I am inside that submersible, crouched in that cramped space. Perhaps it taps into some primal fear, but I strain to imagine what it must be like to sit there in the dark, at the bottom of the sea, knowing that without help you are doomed, having no idea if anyone is coming, knowing your oxygen supply is dwindling.
The rescue mission is, for me, the most powerful human story. The Pennsylvania miners trapped 68 days underground; the baby who fell down a well, stuck for 58 hours; Apollo 13. The world held its breath while these stories were told, hoping, praying for a miracle. We are riveted to rescue stories because every disaster, no matter to whom, no matter how far away, registers as personal. This, something like this, could happen to me, to my loved ones. We’re suddenly aware of two things—how tenuous this life is, and how dead we are without help.
Ultimately, stories of epic search and rescue speak to our souls. According to the Bible, the big, haunting, existential problem with humans is, we are “lost.” We’re in treacherous terrain, and we don’t know how to get home. You may be trapped at the bottom of a 750 ml bottle, lost in a wilderness of grief where all landmarks disappear, marooned on the isle of loneliness, or pinned helplessly beneath a massively false version of yourself. In biblical terms, you are lost, and one thing is sure: you can’t rescue yourself. You better hope and pray somebody comes for you.
There once was a little lamb who wandered off in the wilderness, where the wild beasts lurk. You know this one. The lamb doesn’t even know how lost it is. Has no idea if the shepherd even knows she’s missing. But the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine and comes for the little lost one.
We read, keep reading that story to our children because we need to hear it. Especially when people get trapped in a mine shaft, fall down a well, sink to the bottom of the sea.
P.S. This song has been singing itself in my mind today as a prayer.
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep,
O hear us when we cry to thee
For those in peril on the sea!
If I had to pick a single reason, the trust that God doesn’t lose any of us is the foundation of my faith.
A big yes and amen to that.
Johnna, yes… the thread of faith that sometimes feel fragile but also hopeful – “God doesn’t lose any of us.”
Thank you for this, David. I cannot get those men off of my mind either. On this spectacular morning in Vermont I just pray they’ll see light again.
I’m praying too—I prayed this morning with that song, again.
Tap, tap, tap on the titanium.
David… as usual, your post provoked more than one thought.
1. The song… recognized the lyrics, but not the music. Great article here https://www.classical-music.com/features/articles/eternal-father-strong-to-save-for-those-in-peril-on-the-sea-lyrics/
2. You cite the examples of the lost who are rescued, and I struggle, thinking of the faceless and nameless that don’t get the media attention. Are they less deserving somehow?
Yes, that is the only point worth making—what of all those who are never rescued? It’s the oldest question in the spiritual realm and I don’t of course have an answer, but we can at least say this—that ultimately the rescue comes after the death. All the little deaths we endure along the way, up to the big one at the end. The Good Shepherd who comes for the one lost sheep is himself not spared, and yet after his death he is rescued. We hope and pray for rescue now, we all do, and yet we don’t believe the story is over when death intervenes. How to hold both of things in your heart is the part I haven’t yet figured out, but I am trying.
This is so true! Great post. You put a voice to what we’re all feeling – and the reason for it. Lost, and hopefully found.
The whole thing really is fascinating/disturbing/sad/etc and I struggle a little with “what were they thinking” paying $250k to a company that has had safety issues before..kinda like the skier that goes out of bounds and gets rescued at the cost of the general public. It sounds insensitive I realize and not even sure where I stand on topic – I do know that I desperately want them to be rescued and then ask them what they were thinking. Probably same thing God will say to me when I reach the Pearly Gates! “Pinned helplessly beneath a massively false version of yourself. ” So true, especially where I live..when that overtakes me it introduces itself as massive depression, not an awesome place to be. Authenticity my savior.
Right—there’s been plenty of rich bashing throughout this saga, but at the most basic human level, they’re all just humans. I keep thinking about the father who convinced his 19 year old son to go on the voyage.
David, I was startled by the image: “trapped at the bottom of a 750 ml bottle.”
You perhaps were know this passage from Chapter 2 of the Big Book:
“We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to Captain’s table. Unlike the feelings of the ship’s passengers, however, our joy in escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways. The feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us.”
Today, I’m praying for the five who are–unless there’s a miracle–breathing their last. And I’m giving thanks for my own rescue 24 years ago, not from alcoholism but from food addiction. I’m so grateful as I sit here thinking of all my program friends who shared with me in the “common peril” and now share in the joyful camaraderie of rescue, that feeling that “does not subside.”
And this just struck me: I’ve read that Big Book passage dozens of times but until now I never noticed the great, ironic, verbal brilliance in the word “subside.”
Today we pray for all those underwater. Dear God, bring them up above the surface to breathe again, then to know the joy that never subsides.
Thank you, David.
“The feeling of having shared in a common peril”—that’s the “cement” that holds 12 Step people together, but it’s also what holds people together in church—when we realize that everyone in the Body of Christ is here because the peril is too great to go it alone.
24 years! That’s big boy territory congrats Michael. And I have to be cognizant not to replace one addiction for another which ironically for me is either working out too much or eating like a madman. It all stems from the same source
Thanks, Matt. As I recall you’ve collected quite a stack of chips yourself!
Yes, replacing one addiction with another–that’s a challenge. I think what you’re saying is that while there may be one root cause, there is no one solution, no one program that can manage or treat (let alone cure) all addictions. Is that what you’re saying?
I, too, have thought of that often (the father who convinced his young son to go on this voyage). Just so tragic for everyone — I can’t stop thinking about it.