This is a piece I wrote while vacationing at the Whitehaven Hotel (in Whitehaven, MD) in August 2017. The inn overlooks the Wicomico River. Directly in front is the Whitehaven Ferry (pictured above) that daily ferries vehicles across the Wicomico.
The ferry slowly churns the water as it hauls its passengers over the slow-moving Wicomico. Cars sit buoyed on the floating parking deck. A steel cable emerges from the murky water as the ferry approaches the landing. Disembarkment occurs with a slight dip from the metal ramp to the asphalt incline—a flurry of activity on the calm waters of the Wicomico.
The ferry operator, an overweight and slightly balding man, steers the vessel back and forth. His cell phone is held with both hands on the convexed mid-section that serves as his abdomen. Monotony, routine..., and boredom have removed any zeal for his vital job.
The osprey cries out in the distance, almost like a burst of laughter from nature at the banality of a boat carrying passengers who never go to sea but cross the same quarter-mile of the Wicomico repeatedly. The passengers on either side of the river dictate the trip frequency. Different passengers. Same river. Same ferryman.
The ordinariness of the moment comes on the coattails of an extraordinary feat of two sides of a river now connected by an ordinary ferry. Bridge connections are static, but a ferry connection is dynamic. The back and forth across the Wicomico forms a bridge of metaphor. A ferry and a ferryman connect busy people with two sides of a busy river.
But for two to three minutes, when your car is turned off, and the parking brake is on, the ferry and the ferryman create a sacred pause. The birds and insects sing. The marshland emits a pungent odor. A saltiness hangs in the air. The churning ferry and tubby ferryman connect us in more ways than one on the slow-moving Wicomico.
-"Ferries," 8/8/17
I wrote this reflection seven years ago and could never have imagined the vitriol that would become our politics and the advent of a global pandemic. It was a metaphor in that when two sides are separated, we find a way to overcome the divide. It now seems poetically naïve.
I wonder if the ferry might be a clarion call to the purpose of the American church in these fragmented times. The fast currents of the political divide make a self-determined river crossing all but impossible. The currents of the multifaceted algorithms that form our societal landscapes make us unable to avoid our echo chambers. We believe we can fight the currents, but they’re too powerful.
But rather than finding ways to combat these currents, we are okay to remain on our political pontoons, drifting with the currents. The church appears just as politically siloed as the rest of society.
I still believe in the power of the church to rise above this mess, but my hope is anchored in Christ, not in the optimism of the American spirit. I believe the church is to be that ferry that helps connect two sides of a divide. But I’m ashamed of the comments I hear from pastors, some in my denomination, who repeat the rhetoric of politicians and not the confidence and hope of the gospel.
I will continue to call the church to be a ferry. Step out of your comfortable pontoons and do the actual work of ferrying the fury that is our political moment. Embrace the boredom of your river passages, and help people connect, be reconciled, and embody the Truth. If you are uninterested in that task, enjoy your pontoons of ideology; I have more important work. Pontoons provide the comfort of cowardice. Ferries give the courage of connection.