ISBC 38 - The Practice of Pulling Up Anchor
Chapter 38 of Hope: A User's Manual
One of the things I love about sharing on Substack is the other people on here sharing their insights, reflections, wisdom, humor, and photography. It is a beautiful community. One that I have been following for the last year or so is a photographer named Rachel who shares on her site entitled
. Rachel doesn’t describe herself as a professional photographer but instead someone who just loves sharing what she sees through the lens. One of her posts the other day really spoke to me and speaks to today’s reflection on hope.
Rachel hiked up to a place in Colorado called Mayflower Gulch - take a look at her post and her photos and then come on back.
Yes, I admit that anytime someone shares about the beauty of Colorado, I’m pulled in. Kind of hard not to be for me. Not only were these beautiful photographs but I found myself wondering about the story of Mayflower Gulch - what led to the founding of this mining camp? Well, here’s the answer. ..
So where does this intersect with “The Practice of Pulling Up Anchor?” Well, listen to what MaryAnn writes:
It’s natural to engage in anchor thinking, especially when faced with uncertainty. The past is a huge anchor—we can’t imagine the future, and what we do imagine seems scary, so we default to what we know. It’s why churches, the organizations I know best, so often define success using markers of the past: full pews, a thriving Sunday School, a hefty youth ministry calendar, a burgeoning choir. What would it look like to de-anchor from these vestiges of the past and step into an uncertain future?1
The miners at Mayflower Gulch could have chosen to try to stay there and keep pushing at it but instead they realized it wasn’t going to work out and they moved on and we are left with the remains of their short-lived camp and left to wonder about their stories.2
It is hard to pull up anchor, especially when we have invested so much into something. Into a relationship. A church. A program. An idea. A project... To pull up anchor can so often feel like a failure. As a church pastor, I have felt it and I have heard it shared that letting go of something that worked in the past often feels like a failure rather than a letting go and embracing something new. The focus moves to what was rather than the possibilities of what can be.
MaryAnn continues:
This is hard, scary, and tiring work. It’s much easier to slap up a prefab playground and be done with it. And maybe, sometimes, good enough is good enough. But eliminating anchor thinking is a skill that can be developed, and it’s a feature of hopeful living as well. We’ve said that hopeful people engage in pathway thinking, the ability to think through multiple solutions, and agency thinking, the belief in their own empowerment to make a change. Casting off the anchor can help lighten our load for a new, hopeful approach.3
I wonder what those old prospectors felt like when they were the last ones to leave Mayflower Gulch? Did they feel that they failed? Were they upset that they wasted time, energy, and money? Did they feel like a weight was lifted as they left the gulch? Or were they feeling like “we gave it a go” and wondering where the next will be with hope and possibility...
Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed
McKibben Dana, MaryAnn. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 161). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
Ok - just showing a glimpse into how my weird brain works…As I was writing this and thinking of people just stubbornly pushing on with the same thing over and over, I thought of this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Watch from 0:21 about the castle and the swamp…
McKibben Dana, MaryAnn. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 162). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
Fantastic! I love how you tied Mary Ann's words to a historic location ❤️
Have finally purchased the book. Today's chapter was very well done. Thanks