Safe Harbour

I am blind as a bat without my contact lenses on. Resistant to lasik, I take my contacts out each night and wake to a fuzzy day. then I put the contacts back on and things come back into focus.

I also have problems at night, especially out on the highway, when the headlights have a starburst effect and my eyes become tired. There is nothing like those lights on the horizon though..late at night, when you spot the lights of the city. You know you are almost home.

If anyone knows me they also know I love traveling to and on the water...boats, beaches, oceans. I love riding those waves and feeling that spray. ( if you dont know, just read a few songs.) The imagery of the ocean is really endless. Poets use it and the imagery of boats to represent our passage through life. Alfred Lord Tennyson uses the boat through his poem 'crossing the bar' to represent the passage from life to life after death:

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
........For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.


It has been a murky passage lately. Unclear, unsure. Frustrating. Listening carefully for the Spirit to speak and only hearing silence. Hearing healing prayers answered, but silence for purpose. The air is still, no compass, no direction. Fog everywhere, and no sun in sight.

Perhaps there is a point in everyone's life where they feel adrift on a sea.. The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner says it well.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean

there have been times I have wondered where I am going. what I am doing. and whom I should be doing it with. All of these things are important. But when we cannot see those things clearly, we can rest assured there is a final harbor. A destination where we will anchor and live forever. A place where our purpose is clear and nothing is hidden any longer.

Our creator is guiding us there, (whether the wind blows us or not.) To a place where none of us will need our glasses...For we shall see Him as He is.

Safe Harbour
written for Ainsley Floyd, 2008

who knows where the cold wind blows when the winter goes away?
who knows why the young get old and sail out on their way?
who can say whether fair or storm will guide you in the wind?
You can know wherever you go you can find your home again.


Angel when you spread you sails
And fly like wings in the wind
Dont you fear for I'll not fail
To help you find, your safe harbour again.

Who knows what castaways
you will take aboard?
who knows what treasures gold
Of an ancient pirate hoard

who can say if you will travel far
or sail in ports near home
But I will say wherever you go
you will never go alone.

Who can say whether fate will lead us
Far away from shores we know
If the compass fails or the skies turn red
Or if the weather will hold?

And who knows what you may find
when your journey meets its end?
But I will say a safe harbour awaits
My angel and my friend

Angel when you spread your sails
And fly like wings in the wind
Dont you fear for I'll not fail
To help you find....your safe harbour again.
copywrite 2008, LeighAnn Heil