The emotional pull of sailing leads to all kinds of analogies and metaphors about life. The very Zen of the experience has inspired numerous posters and bumper stickers.

Here’s a unique twist in a video with Oprah Winfrey by Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor,  a professor of religion at Piedmont College in north Georgia.

“I think we’d like life to be a train… You get on, pick your destination and get off,” Rev. Taylor says. Life doesn’t work this, she explains. It’s more like a sailboat ride.

20151017_151655_resized“Every day, you have to see where the wind is and check the currents and see if there’s anybody else on the boat with you who can help out. It’s a sailboat ride — the weather changes and the currents change and the wind changes. It’s not a train ride.”

This video came to me from my daughter Wendy, in Denver. She wrote: “Right, but my Dad already taught me that.”

Let’s go sail. To see the rates and reserve a date for a sailboat charter, click here. To check out reviews from sailors, click here. To become a crew member on a charter sail or to tell us your sailing story,  click here.

More from the Captain...

Police Sail

Police Sail recounts dispatcher’s account of two bad accidents on the Rappahannock and James Rivers. Let’s go sail.

Full Story >

Wedding

Bonnie and I went to Gainesville for the wedding of our daughter Robin Ann O’Donovan to Christopher Chase Tucker. They’ve known each other for five years, and he has endeared himself to her children Remy and Ivan. It was a solemn yet festive occasion on a beautiful day, followed by

Full Story >