I can’t stop thinking about the giant ship stuck in the Suez Canal in the middle of Passover. It gave new meaning to the Lilliputians, the little ones that have so much power. It gave new meaning to the Mizraim, the Hebrew word for narrow places being fertile places for sin. The whole experience restored my sense of humor about that old line, “too big for your britches.”
I also felt like something larger, not bigger but larger, than the event had happened. The world of the big only being less than the bigger, which is less than the biggest, had come into full view. Big was wearing a new wardrobe and the clothes didn’t fit. Big came under a kind of comic, nearly tragic surveillance. It looked fat in those clothes.
Even the ship’s name, the “Ever Given,” amused me. I thought for a while that it might just be stuck there for years and people would be pontificating about supply chains being disrupted. Disruption is a newly popular word in my neighborhood in a city of the American left. We say it with admiration. We “disrupted” the meeting or the boss or the platform or the policy. We disrupted carbon’s accelerated use. All of these things are very small compared to clogging the Suez Canal, which we did not do but the “bigs” did.
My kids often called their parents, the “bigs,” as in, “what do you think the ‘bigs’ will say if we do that?” I wonder what it’s like for kids to feel so small. I love people who bend down when they talk to kids.
The ship gave us a reverse story of Exodus for our Passover meals. Instead of the Red Sea parting, it clogged. Instead of its strong powerful action of opening up, it really closed down. Instead of bringing liberation to the captives, this boat captivated the captives and not just on the internet.
The picture of the giant crane shrunken in size and capacity next to the giant cargo ship gave me a new picture of my own personal impotence. I am not small. I am actually impactful. But next to the crane not being able to get that ship to budge, I was mighty. Still. Nevertheless. Was there a single thing I could do to move that ship? Nope. Not a single thing. Why would anyone want to be powerful enough to move a big ship in the first place? What about how good you are at running a meeting or baking bread or visiting the sick? Why would anyone would want to be a big ship in the first place? Or need one?
Twenty-seven thousand metric tons of sand were applied to lift the level. They failed.
The giant cranes failed.
Along came the full moon, using a kind of magnetic energy to lift the water, and liberation occurred. I love the ending to the story (if it is really over) being menstrual, seasonal, lunar.
I do know that more giant cargo ships are heading straight to the Suez Canal. I realize that my client is never Target or Walmart or any of the other giant box stores that depend on a giant box of a ship. I don’t hope they get their stuff. Instead, I hope they don’t get their stuff. That’s why I like the word disruption.
But I don’t think this story is over. I think it’s going to have a monthly, like we use to say about women having their monthly.
Theologian Walter Brueggemann says in Psalms and the Life of Faith that “the motion of the psalms is disorientation, reorientation and orientation.”
When I speak of environmental theology, I use the language disenchantment and re-enchantment, leading to enchantment.
I like the rule of three. The stuck ship was free, then stuck, then unstuck.
The meaning for me? Don’t get too big for your canals. It’s kind of like a 90-pound woman delivering a 14-pound baby. It hurts. The birth canal hurts.
The moon had enough work to do already without having to lift big ships. So do I. So do you. At least I got a new metaphor out of the mess the never giving gave us. Her clothes really don’t fit real life. They are big britches and they are not flattering on her.
Think big? No. Think small.
Rev. Dr Donna Schaper is senior minister at Judson Memorial Church, co-founder of New York City New Sanctuary Movement and Bricks and Mortals: RemoveThePews.com. Ashe is the author of 35 books, most recently, I Heart You Francis: Love Letters from a Reluctant Admirer. She also grows a good tomato.