This is
an analogy familiar to anyone who has taken a trip
on a cruise line and it revolves around the
captain’s table, an invitation only dining
experience where those lucky enough to receive
such an invitation would find themselves dining
among the people who keep the ship running. The
selection process is random with it normally going
to guests who have amassed many hours at sea with
a particular cruise line. To look at the deeper
meaning of this scenario, let's say the table is
on a cruise ship we'll call third dimensional
Earth which would be synonymous to the real world
we wake up to every day. As with every cruise
ship, there are a mix of passengers and crew with
the majority of passengers outnumbering the crew
by a substantial margin, this is all about that
margin. What defines a passenger on this cruise is
someone enjoying the trip but not taking the time
to delve into what makes the the cruise ship run.
A perfect example would be my mother whose only
major contribution to the planet was to meet my
father so that I could be born. She was a person
with deep religious convictions who worked until
retirement and died safe in the knowledge heaven
would be her final reward as she was welcomed
through the pearly gates by Jesus himself. That
knowledge brought her through her life and it will
take her into her next one where the cycle will
start all over again except that in the waiting
period, she'll find out how things really work and
hopefully will try to pass on what she learned. The
typical passenger on a real ship is looking to use
the cruise to relax while away from a job or
school and knows that while all that may be
waiting, there is nothing to do in the meantime
except enjoy the ports the ship visits, eat the
fantastic food prepared by teams of cooks night
and day, work off the weight from that food in the
gym, jogging track, basketball court or dance the
night away at any one of the many nightclubs.
Pools and jacuzzi’s help to sooth sore muscles or
one could schedule a masseuse to work out the
kinks while letting go of all the cares in the
world. If they should get tired of the main dining
room, specialty restaurants abound with tastes
from around the world and staff specialized in
serving their selections to perfection. The only
bad thing to be said for all this pampering? You
definitely don’t want to be a passenger. It’s fine
to enjoy the trip, be comfortable in the
experience and revel in the indulgences but the
real heroes of this analogy are the staff, those
who paid the same amount to be on this trip as the
passengers but get to do the all work helping to
bring this ship to port. Saving the port's
location for later, there's nothing to say that
the work the staff does is hard or that they can't
have as much or even more fun than the passengers.
For them it's a labor of love and something they
feel drawn to pursue.
Metaphorically speaking, this cruise has been
going on for so long, no one can even remember
when it was they even came on board. Since then
for most people, it has been an endless series of
buffet lines and live entertainment with the ship
rarely stopping and when it does, it is to let
crew off before taking up the trip again. Every
time the ship stops, beautiful ports of call lay
almost within arm’s reach but the only way to get
to shore is to be a part of the crew and that
means working with the ship instead of just
enjoying the trip. That can sometimes be a
challenge as there always seems to be new
inducements to stay a passenger forever appearing
almost on a daily basis. There is now WI-FI around
most parts of the ship and the entertainment
options are completely staggering. Where once the
choices of how to fill a day were fairly limited,
now there are water parks, driving ranges, VR
headsets and social media. There are also though
worries about the ship taking on water and a
number of passengers have become too alarmed to
enjoy the trip while elsewhere, passengers in a
few of the compartments are constantly bickering
over politics and closet space. Inevitably
everyone reaches a point on a personal level where
they decide the trip has gone on long enough and
it is time to see what is available off the ship.
That is when that person would get up out of their
seat at the captain’s table and become a part of
the crew serving those still seated. Now as a
part of the crew, they would take on any tasks
that they were best suited and take advantage of
their unique talents. This was a fairly new ship
even before all the upgrades with the passengers
and crew just getting their sea legs in comparison
to the beings at the ports the ship passes. Those
ports are other worlds, galaxies and dimensions
some of the crew get to visit and tell of their
wonders. One task a crew member might choose as
their form of service may be in sharing what they
have learned about those ports with the other
passengers who may then get up from their seats to
join in the servicing of others. As the table
starts to have less and less people sitting and
more empty chairs, the serving of just the crew
becomes easier and a lot more fun. It could
even come to be that everyone will eventually
decide to serve instead of sit and at that point
the cruise will finally come into port to let the
crew disembark to enjoy the wonderful future
waiting. That's a long way off with plenty of
storms to steer clear of but in the meantime,
there’s plenty of time to study and prepare from
the ship’s extensive collection of library
archives on how best to interrelate with those
higher dimensional former passengers once that
gangplank finally gets lowered. In love and light as one,
Russ and Karra
