The ‘snow birding’ Johnsons returned home from Florida last Friday to their lakefront retreat, much to the chagrin of the geese who obviously had their way with our property for the winter months. The grass was green and needed a mow. Tree branches, winter’s debris, were strewn all over the lawn, but the white dogwood off the corner of our deck was in bloom. The patio at the water’s edge, with its two solitary Adirondack chairs, looked lonely but still inviting. The sun glistened off the water, and two or three boats on the lake braved the chill of this early spring day. Anglers, I am sure. What a familiar, welcoming greeting!
One of our most appreciated and unique blessings that issues from living on the lake is the routine we follow each morning. Coventry Lake, Wangumbaug Lake on the oldest of maps, is home to the University of Connecticut women’s varsity crew, and their boathouse and dock is located near our home, just across a narrow inlet leading to the Lake View Restaurant. We awaken each morning to the encouragement of a coxswain, the liberal use of a bullhorn by head coach Jennifer Sanford from an accompanying and specially designed motorboat, and best of all, the synchronized slap, or as it is called, ‘zep’ of the oars in the water. Weather permitting, we sit on the deck with our coffee and bagel and cream cheese, feeling the joy of the poetic and graceful movements of such a magnificent sport.
UConn is not the only program using Coventry Lake for training its crew. Throughout the day, there is always a shell or scull in the water. Some individuals own their own or use those owned by a community rowing club. (CLCR) An increasing number of local high schools now have teams, such as E. O. Smith High School in Storrs and Coventry High School, located just up the road from the lake. Pamela Miller is the head coach for Coventry, but she is also the central organizing figure for the extraordinarily successful recreational and competitive Coventry Lake Community Rowing, Inc., serving as its operations manager and head coach. Sponsored programs include senior, adult, collegiate and youth classes and provide an accommodating schedule of times and training in the sculls, much to the visual delight and gratitude of ‘lakesiders’ like us! The sport’s popularity tells us that there something very meaningful about the participation of so many. Maybe the interest and commitment are not only about the joy of rowing, but the rewards promised by her motto:
Change Your View, Go Backwards!
Watching the teams train, I am reminded every day of Daniel James Brown’s wonderful book The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, first published in June, 2013. The movie followed in 2023. I loved both. George Yeoman Pocock was a leading character in the story and a highly acclaimed designer and builder of racing shells in the 20th century. It was his shell that was used by the University of Washington crew in the 1936 Olympics. It was called the ‘Husky Clipper.’ And those nine boys had an epic journey together, at the end of which they won the gold medal, as Adolf Hitler scowled his disappointment and white Christian national embarrassment. When asked about the most important lesson learned from rowing, the sagely Pocock responded saying.
It is hard to make that boat go as fast as you want it to. The enemy is the resistance of the water… But that very water is what supports you and that very enemy is your friend. So is life: the very problems you must overcome also support and make you strong in overcoming them.
And Brown said of the boys themselves:
The challenges they had faced together had taught them humility—the need to subsume their individual egos for the sake of the boat as a whole—and humility was the common gateway through which they were able now to come together and begin to do what they had not been able to do before.
I thought that the movie was terrific. One of the final lines involves an older Joe Rantz being asked by his grandson, Fred, if he liked rowing in an eight-man crew, to which Joe replied.
We were never eight. We were one.
Other commentators have reflected on the spiritual / life lessons offered by both the sport and the book/movie. Pastors, life mentors, real-life coaches, and corporate motivational speakers trying to create a particular business culture have all offered their individual perspectives. I too would offer mine.
I am not surprised that Jesus, when calling the core members of his disciples, he chose first some ‘Boys in the Boat’ who were nearby. He sought out those of common origin, who knew only hard physical labor, and as a result, had strong backs, and the calloused hands of oarsman familiar with rowing with your back to the direction in which you were going. They had weathered the storms that unexpectedly developed on the Sea of Galilee. They knew all about water as both friend and enemy; but they also knew about the power of trust, resilience and perseverance to help with overcoming adversities of all kinds. Jesus saw in Simon Peter and his brother Andrew and the sons of Zebedee, James and John, and Thomas, the start of an extraordinary team. Indeed, as we experience the election of a successor Pope to Francis, we are reminded that it was upon Peter that Jesus would establish His church, and he was the first Bishop of Rome.
Jesus would then call others from diverse backgrounds and professions, proving he was one of the first advocates of D.E.I., a tax collector, an accountant, a political zealot, and a few nobodies, counting twelve in all. They trained among the people. It was all transactional, overcoming each adversity by the power of God which is love. Without fear, they challenged loveless power and lifted its victims. Jesus imbued them with the vision of a redeemed world, and they subsumed their egos in service to that vision. He then sent them on their long epic journey, a mission for sure, to preach the gospel, to heal the world and bring unity for all humanity. It is a remarkable narrative, one that is not completed. Their work continues in and through us.
We live in a terribly divided world, kept so by radically opposed visions of what the world should be like. Sadly, Christian voices contribute to the acrimony and toxicity. Jesus wept over Jerusalem then. He weeps over us today. In the Gospel according to John, however, while preparing for the cruelty and crucifixion of his final hours, Jesus prays for his disciples:
13 But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.[d] 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.[e] 16 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.
20 “I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. (John 17: 13-21; NRSVU)
That prayer for unity will only be fulfilled if we work hard, if work together and if we work to provide a compelling Christian alternative to what the world is offering: insist on truth not lies, peace not war, hope, not hate, protecting and promoting the interests of the powerless rather than the powerful, being a voice for the poor, the weak and vulnerable rather than the rich and privileged, and to protect the children, always the children. The agenda is set. Issues range from climate change to LGBTQT rights, human rights, and worker’s rights. Work hard. Work together. That is what Jesus requires. We must row the boat in the same direction, cutting through the waters of resistance, even retaliation, stroke by stroke, accomplishing the same holy and moral goals.
Those boys in the boat, and all those who have followed, have worked for one goal:
They were never eight. They were one.
We, too, must fulfill Jesus’ greatest hope:
Never divided, always one.
Finally, sounds something like “E pluribus unum”- “out of many, one,” doesn’t it?