A bunch of us were discussing how hard it is to keep doing our jobs when it feels as if the ground is slipping beneath us and I brought up Stephen Crane's short story "The Open Boat." Here we have four men--a ship's captain, a cook, a journalist, and an oiler who works in the engine room--who would move in very different circles on dry land, but throw them together in a tiny dinghy tossed on rough seas and surrounded by sharks and they form a tight community working together toward a common goal--survival.
We've done this before, I remind my colleagues. When Covid forced us to quickly pivot to online teaching in March of 2020, it felt like an impossible task but somehow we all pulled together and survived. It wasn't the most rewarding teaching experience of our lives, but we made it to shore.
But then I remember that in Crane's story, not everyone makes it to shore. Sure, the four men are all working together, but they endure 30 hours in a small dinghy, wet and miserable and unfed, only to swamp near shore and take a serious dunking that threatens all their lives and kills the strongest man among them.
So sure, we're enduring rough seas and working together toward the goal of survival, but we're also wet and cranky and hungry for hope and we fear that some of us won't make it to shore. If the strongest man in the open boat can be crushed by the waves, what can protect me?
Where are the life jackets? Who will call off the sharks?
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