Grand Designs

I know a man who has famously taken and published photographs of ships. Also barns, and bridges, and trains, and the great American landscape. This weekend I purchased a publication of his Great Lakes steamship photographs. He told me how these were some his most favorite of all his many images. Odd that I would be talking with him and looking at those images on April 14, 2012, just hours before the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic.

I've never before given the event much thought. I wasn't swept away by the movie. I have no plans to see the 3D reprise. But my son has been Titanic crazy lately. I don't know exactly how that's come about but it's been pretty steady for the past three weeks or so. And so it is that we've watched a couple of the documentary specials they've run on public television. We've read the National Geographic children's book on the subject. In all of that I know, even as much as he can recite quite a few of the facts of the matter, his grasp of the event is all but absent. The real lessons to be learned from that terrible event 100 years ago are several, none of which he yet understands.

He doesn't yet understand the importance of never taking life for granted. I hope he grows up to know that every day lived well is a precious gift, not to be treated casually.

He doesn't yet understand the importance of never taking the love given by another for granted. I hope he grows up to know that living your life being loved by another is also a precious gift, not to be treated casually.

And perhaps the most important lesson he needs to someday fully understand is this: Human pride coupled with human fallibility is always a toxic mix, often with catastrophic outcomes. Nothing is ever so grand that it cannot fail, cannot disappoint, cannot take you down. Intelligent design always recognizes, and is built to accommodate, its potential weaknesses; whether relationships or oceanliners. I hope he grows up to understand that sailing through life requires knowledge of purpose, strength of design, and a willingness to recognize one's weaknesses.