Posted:
October 23, 2015
Thank you, Charles, for arranging this service, for introducing our host, and for your commitment to the U.S. merchant marine officers we are privileged to represent in American Maritime Officers.
Thank you, Pastor Mario Cinelli, for having opened this church to us today, and for your ministry to this community, especially for the services you provide for people in need.
Thank you as well to the South Broward High School ROTC Honor Guard for the presentation of the colors. Your discipline and demeanor will make you leaders in life, and we are grateful to you for your participation.
And thank you all for joining us today.
It is appropriate that we gather in this House of Faith. As the British Poet William Butler Yeats wrote: "A sea captain, when he stands upon the bridge, or looks out from his deckhouse, thinks much about God and the world."
Tragic events like the loss of the El Faro cause all of us to contemplate God and the world - specifically, the dominant sea, which we know to be both majestic and menacing.
But, in this setting, we focus on faith - faith in a loving deity, faith in family, faith in friends.
Today, we have no doubt that the 28 American officers and crewmembers and the five Polish contractors aboard the El Faro had strong faith in each other - as friends and as family.
To seagoing professionals like the men and women aboard the El Faro, a ship is a home underway from home.
Because they live where they work, merchant mariners tend easily to see each other as brothers and sisters, and senior shipboard personnel often emerge as parental figures to younger shipboard staff.
Mariners believe in each other and depend upon each other at many levels, just as they believe in and depend on kin awaiting their return to shore. At sea, family is most frequently defined not by flesh and blood, but by heart and soul.
But faith, wherever it is placed, sometimes requires courage - another attribute common among and in many ways unique to American merchant mariners.
Today, we have no doubt that the men and women on the El Faro were extraordinarily brave under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. We know that they worked heroically to the final minute to save each other and their ship, daring to take on an uncompromising storm of terrifying size and scope.
In their lives and in their work, these heroes embodied the tradition of valor that has distinguished American merchant mariners since the Revolution. They were dedicated to the economic interests of the United States, and they were available for defense shipping services in national security emergencies.
Today, we are reminded of at least one timeless truth - all Americans who choose working lives at sea do so with the clear understanding that the sea can someday choose them. This is faith. This is courage. This is strength. This is character.
And, as I know from direct experience and from what has been relayed to me by others, the families wrenched so emotionally by the loss of the El Faro are every bit as courageous as their lost loved ones.
In this context, and in the ecumenical spirit of this setting, I will paraphrase a Jewish proverb: "Give me not a lighter burden, but broader shoulders."
The burden borne by our El Faro families has not lightened since we last heard from the ship on October 1. But shoulders have broadened significantly in each and every El Faro household. These moms, dads, grandparents, husbands and wives and brothers and sisters distinguish themselves not only by their bravery, but also by their grace, their dignity, their perseverance and their encouraging example. I ask that we continue to respect their collective right to privacy and at least a moment's peace.
As we meet here today, a U.S. Navy team is en route to El Faro's last known location to search for the wreckage and remains, and an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board is well underway.
American Maritime Officers will refrain from all official comment during this Navy mission and during this independent investigation.
I ask each of the mariners here to do the same if approached at any time by a broadcast or print reporter or if asked to respond to some social media post.
I ask this because much of the media coverage of the El Faro tragedy thus far has been marred by speculation, supposition, sensationalism and second-guessing. These articles are written generally by people with no seafaring credentials, reporters who clearly do not understand professional perspective when they trouble themselves to find it.
Please excuse this brief diversion from course, but I just had to make these points.
I will close with the words of contemporary Irish poet Van Morrison, who turned the mariner's experience into metaphors for living life to its fullest and coming to terms with life's inevitable end:
"Hark - now hear the sailors cry. Smell the sea, feel the sky. Let your soul and spirit fly as we sail into the Mystic."
May our souls and spirits fly freely in lasting memory of the officers and crew aboard El Faro.
Thank you.
El Faro memorial: Remarks of AMO National President Paul Doell
Thank you, Charles, for arranging this service, for introducing our host, and for your commitment to the U.S. merchant marine officers we are privileged to represent in American Maritime Officers.
Thank you, Pastor Mario Cinelli, for having opened this church to us today, and for your ministry to this community, especially for the services you provide for people in need.
Thank you as well to the South Broward High School ROTC Honor Guard for the presentation of the colors. Your discipline and demeanor will make you leaders in life, and we are grateful to you for your participation.
And thank you all for joining us today.
It is appropriate that we gather in this House of Faith. As the British Poet William Butler Yeats wrote: "A sea captain, when he stands upon the bridge, or looks out from his deckhouse, thinks much about God and the world."
Tragic events like the loss of the El Faro cause all of us to contemplate God and the world - specifically, the dominant sea, which we know to be both majestic and menacing.
But, in this setting, we focus on faith - faith in a loving deity, faith in family, faith in friends.
Today, we have no doubt that the 28 American officers and crewmembers and the five Polish contractors aboard the El Faro had strong faith in each other - as friends and as family.
To seagoing professionals like the men and women aboard the El Faro, a ship is a home underway from home.
Because they live where they work, merchant mariners tend easily to see each other as brothers and sisters, and senior shipboard personnel often emerge as parental figures to younger shipboard staff.
Mariners believe in each other and depend upon each other at many levels, just as they believe in and depend on kin awaiting their return to shore. At sea, family is most frequently defined not by flesh and blood, but by heart and soul.
But faith, wherever it is placed, sometimes requires courage - another attribute common among and in many ways unique to American merchant mariners.
Today, we have no doubt that the men and women on the El Faro were extraordinarily brave under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. We know that they worked heroically to the final minute to save each other and their ship, daring to take on an uncompromising storm of terrifying size and scope.
In their lives and in their work, these heroes embodied the tradition of valor that has distinguished American merchant mariners since the Revolution. They were dedicated to the economic interests of the United States, and they were available for defense shipping services in national security emergencies.
Today, we are reminded of at least one timeless truth - all Americans who choose working lives at sea do so with the clear understanding that the sea can someday choose them. This is faith. This is courage. This is strength. This is character.
And, as I know from direct experience and from what has been relayed to me by others, the families wrenched so emotionally by the loss of the El Faro are every bit as courageous as their lost loved ones.
In this context, and in the ecumenical spirit of this setting, I will paraphrase a Jewish proverb: "Give me not a lighter burden, but broader shoulders."
The burden borne by our El Faro families has not lightened since we last heard from the ship on October 1. But shoulders have broadened significantly in each and every El Faro household. These moms, dads, grandparents, husbands and wives and brothers and sisters distinguish themselves not only by their bravery, but also by their grace, their dignity, their perseverance and their encouraging example. I ask that we continue to respect their collective right to privacy and at least a moment's peace.
As we meet here today, a U.S. Navy team is en route to El Faro's last known location to search for the wreckage and remains, and an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board is well underway.
American Maritime Officers will refrain from all official comment during this Navy mission and during this independent investigation.
I ask each of the mariners here to do the same if approached at any time by a broadcast or print reporter or if asked to respond to some social media post.
I ask this because much of the media coverage of the El Faro tragedy thus far has been marred by speculation, supposition, sensationalism and second-guessing. These articles are written generally by people with no seafaring credentials, reporters who clearly do not understand professional perspective when they trouble themselves to find it.
Please excuse this brief diversion from course, but I just had to make these points.
I will close with the words of contemporary Irish poet Van Morrison, who turned the mariner's experience into metaphors for living life to its fullest and coming to terms with life's inevitable end:
"Hark - now hear the sailors cry. Smell the sea, feel the sky. Let your soul and spirit fly as we sail into the Mystic."
May our souls and spirits fly freely in lasting memory of the officers and crew aboard El Faro.
Thank you.