the buoy
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If you go to the seaside you'd be surprised by the ever increasing number of buoys you see. Buoys of all shapes and sizes, from little plastic containers to the very big ones. They all have the same function - tied with a rope to a stone or some other heavy object cast at the bottom of the sea, they ensure that the boats moored to them remain at their place, in spite of the movements of the waves or storms.
One will not possess a boat for long if it is not secured to a buoy - unless of course one leaves it in a garage! And what possible use can it have in a garage? Its place is in the sea.
In some of our bays, if one wants to swim for some length rather than hug the shore, one ends up going from buoy to buoy.
This is my experience every summer. But recently I was struck by a thought as I was swimming. I said to myself: in the sea there are these buoys which help me to rest if I get tired. But do I have any buoys in my daily life?
When I am tired, where do I find my rest? If worried, confused, uncertain what to do, where do I go to find consolation? When somebody hurts me, to whom do I go for soothing ointment? When I need advice, where do I seek it? In my life I need a "buoy" to which to tie myself and at which I can rest.
Other questions came to mind. When somebody is worried, hurt, needs a listening ear, will that person find in me the "buoy" she/he needs? For I too must be a "buoy" for others. No person can live alone, we need each other.
Left alone, whether by personal choice or not, a person will be just like a boat let loose at sea. With the slightest movement of the waters, and more and more in a storm, s/he will find her/himself smashed against the rocks of life.
Christ must be our "buoy": "Come to me all you who are weary and overburdened and I will give you rest." But he wants us also to be "buoys" for our sisters and brothers: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, be merciful, compassionate. To love as he loved. The buoys in our waters are ever on the increase. May there be ever more and more human "buoys", so that at last peace and true love will reign in our world.
Katie Mifsud rscj
District of Malta
This is a beautiful and meaningful writing.