Rock
the Boat
“So,
Id’ like to know where you got the notion,
Said,
I’d like to know where you got the notion,
To
rock the boat baby, don’t rock the boat,
Don’t
tip the boat over…”
Wally Holms, The
Hues Corporation (2008)
Okay,
it’s another “song stuck in the head” situation! I dreamed early this morning
that I was working on the Doug Jones campaign, talking with a beautiful black
woman with big hair about having a role in his administration, and when I woke,
this song was playing in all its disco beauty inside my head. So, I looked it
up and of course, it has been used at all sorts of political events (as “rock
the vote”) and in movies about injustice, such as Milk. But the original lyrics
compared relationships to a ship on the ocean, with love being what keeps it
going strong—thus, “don’t rock the boat, baby.” Right about now, you may be
wondering what this has to do with spirituality, and so am I, but here I am, with this song stuck in my brain.
There
is a whole lot of boat rocking going on in the world right now. There is
tremendous unrest over the pandemic, over racial tensions, over the inequitable
distribution of wealth, and over the questions of what does America stand for,
and where are we headed? We are plowing through some rough water, as a nation
and as a world. Under such circumstances, where do we get the notion to
rock the boat? When it is the only way out, right? When you have tried
everything you know to do, and nothing has made a difference. When your pleas,
your demands, and your tears have not produced results. When things are so
rigid and immoveable, that the only hope for change is to turn the boat upside
down.
I
wonder whether you have ever felt that desperate. If not, you have lived a
charmed life, or a sheltered one. The tension involved is almost unendurable.
You feel like you want to scream and pull your hair out, or punch someone in
the face. You want to do something so disturbing that it cannot be ignored. So,
you rock the boat. You leave and slam the door behind you, you take to the
streets and scream and yell, you break things.
It is not
a good idea to let emotions escalate to that point if you can help it. It is far
better to talk things out, to take some deep breaths and calm yourself. But
there is a time for rocking the boat. There is a time when rocking the
boat, even tipping it over, is the only way to create change. When that
happens, we must be courageous enough to rock and roll. Change rarely happens
when life is sailing along on calm seas, when we are lulled into complacency. So,
do not be afraid to rock the boat a little bit. Just make sure you know how to
swim.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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