The Bow Wow Seat

Today I rowed in the bow seat. That means the front of the boat, closest to the bow. And behind everyone else, since we are all sitting backwards. So the bow seat crosses the finish line first and gets to watch everything going on in the boat. I love the bow seat. I get teased when I sit there because I am one of the bigger girls on the team, and usually bow seats are usually some of the smaller people. I love it, and since I will never sit in the back seat (the stroke seat), it is the one end I can occupy happily!

In the picture that is the header for this Blog, the bow seat is the seat on the left hand side of the picture. I'm in five seat in that picture, Barbara Newhouse in the coveted bow seat.

As I was rowing bow seat this morning, I thought about the passage from the Gospel of John,

John testified to the child, and cried out "this was the one of whom I said, 'the one who comes after me ranks ahead of me because that one was before me'".

Read that sentence of Scripture out loud and you will know what it is like to row bow seat. You climb aboard, row bow seat, and shake your head in amazement. It is so wonderfully complicated. Just like reading this passage out loud. Because to truly row the bow seat, you need to be quick and light and a great follower and a great "setter" of the boat, meaning a good balancer. You need to watch and not watch at the same time and see who is behind and sense who is in front of us. All of this sitting on a sliding seat going backward.

I love finding God on the water! Again from John's Gospel, "From the fullness of the Child we have all received, grace upon grace." My theological thought for the day is from the fullness of undefended, humble, Godward community we have all received such grace.