tacking

In the far off days of student life, when summer holidays went on and on for months, I sometimes worked on farms in Easter Ross.

The father of one of the guys I knew up there had a sailing boat. Not exactly a full blown yacht, but more than merely a rowing boat - though not by much. It had a mast and a sail, and a rudder.

My friend took us out one night to enjoy the delights of the Cromarty Firth from the sea instead of the shore. A pleasant evening sail.

At least it was to start with. The tide and thew wind were all in our favour as we headed out and down the firth right on out into the vast open spaces of the North Sea. We fairly glided through the water - a wonderful sensation being carried along at such speed by a little boat such as that.

And then it was time to come home. My friend swung the boat around.

The wind by now had got up, and something approaching a gale, I suppose, was blowing us out to sea. I think I inwardly panicked at that particular point. It hadn't quite dawned on my carefree mind that getting back could present a problem.

The wind which had blown us so thrillingly right out to sea was still .. well blowing us out to sea. Only now it was stronger than ever.

"How do we get back?" I casually asked, with as much in the way of a jocular, nonchalant spirit as an ignorant land-lubber like myself could muster. I secretly hoped my friend would have an engine stashed away, unseen and out of sight: because it seemed like an awful long way we'd have to row back home - and I wasn't quite sure that we'd manage against the force of the wind and the tide.

"Same way we got here," my friend replied. "We sail."

I think I muttered a vague "Of course!" but the laugh was more nerves on my part than enjoying the joke I assumed that my friend had been making.

I mean, how do you sail right into the wind, when the wind fills the sail and drives you the way that it's blowing?

Logic was always a strength of mine, I thought. Though I started to feel that either my logic or my sense of humour must be failing pretty fast.

That was the day I learned my 'maritime logic'. A whole new way of living which defies the normal laws and means you can indeed go forward when the wind is blowing right into your face.

That was the day I learned about 'tacking'.

Sailing downwind is easy to understand. Sailing upwind, directly into the wind, is also easy to understand - it's impossible. The sail just flaps limply and the boat simply drifts downwind.

Tacking's the stuff of which heroes are made. It's the boldness which dares the impossible, the courage to go where all logic dictates you simply will never arrive.

Tacking's the skill which we're now going to have to acquire in the grave new world of our day, when we dare to fly (or sail) in the face of the powerful winds of a godless, defiant rebelliousness now sweeping right over our land.

If we don't learn this skill then we'll all be completely at sea.

We have to learn just how it is that we defy these gales and resolutely dare to press on forward back to solid ground again, against the wind.

Tacking's the skill of standing for truth when the winds of culture's godlessness are blowing in your face.

Tacking's the strategy of faithfulness when living in a society of godlessness.

Tacking's the maritime logic adherents of Scriptural truth must adopt when the winds of political correctness start blowing the church from her moorings and leave her adrift, all at sea .

Tacking is all about angles and getting those angles all right.

Tacking is all about patience and learning to think now long-term.

Tacking is all about boldness and daring to trust in a logic which reason suggests shouldn't work.

Tacking is faith in the raw.

I learned it first in the Cromarty Firth. And I'm learning it fast once again.