Don’t be forgettin’ to talk to ye Cap’n. Have ye been gettin’ too soft on the shores? Git out there an’ Pray Like a Pirate! Too often we be too comfortable with the crosses we bear e’ry day. We git too lilly-livered and cowardly, stayin in waters we know to be safe. But yer Capt’n, the Christ Jesus, told ye to go out to all the world and preach ‘is good news. To serve the poor. To trust ‘im on the stormy seas of life. So muster up yer courage and ask yer Capt’n to push ye out to the depths, where thar be monsters, storms, and big beasties of life that ye need to trust ‘im, and not yer own strength. In the words of the cur Francis Drake - counted as a scoundrel by all but the English, who went and knighted ‘im for plundering under their colors:

Disturb us, Lord, when We are too pleased with ourselves, When our dreams have come true Because we dreamed too little, When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess We have lost our thirst For the waters of life; Having fallen in love with life, We have ceased to dream of eternity And in our efforts to build a new earth, We have allowed our vision Of the new Heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, To venture on wilder seas Where storms will show Your mastery; Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars. We ask you to push back The horizons of our hopes; And to push back the future In strength, courage, hope, and love. This we ask in the name of our Captain, Who is Jesus Christ.

An’ fly the colors on yer gut with the Christian Pirate Shirt from Amazon. (Originally posted on Talk Like A Pirate Day, September 19, on another incarnation of this blog. Hence the pirate-y composition.)