The Sea, He/She/It?

How did it happen that somewhere along the line the French opted for ‘la mer’, feminine, while the Spaniards and Portuguese for ‘el mar’ or ‘o mar’, masculine? Very likely it simply sounded better like that, once they had settled on ‘mer’ and ‘mar’. But could it have anything to do with their respective attitudes to the sea, and does the fact of ascribing a gender to things impact on one's relationship with them, one's culture and way of life?

I think it is fair to say that the French are more inclined to ‘love’ the sea than the Iberian nations; anyway the latter mainly leave yachting to the rich people frolicking round marinas, while their serious sailors generally only go to sea for serious reasons like catching fish. On the other hand frugal long-term French yachtsmen are to be met with anywhere, while France is the only place in Europe where sailing is really a national sport. Whether all that has anything to do with the matter of the sea's gender is anyone’s guess, but at least ascribing gender to things implies dynamic relationship. Even the English ascribe gender to ships and boats!

It’s really hard to be indifferent to the sea. She/He/It invariably calls for some kind of response. If one thinks of it as ‘It’, is one not more inclined to discount one’s personal relationship with it, to treat it merely as a challenge or a thing to be dominated? But people who live close to it know that it has its own moods, personality and intrinsic discipline, which have to be respected, as of course does life itself. Any civilisation must have a system of red lines that express such discipline. That marriage is the union of a man and a woman for life, and that human life is sacred from conception until natural death, would be such red lines to my mind. If society abandons them, it signs its own death warrant; it becomes a mob that destroys itself. Suddenly one finds everything from great political projects to the local supermarket being torn down!

It becomes more and more difficult for conscientious people to invest their loyalty in such a society. Well, you may mess with laws, but you won’t get away with messing with the sea for long; hence the attraction of it to the disenchanted; and when the likes of me find ourselves thus alienated, we must see if we can shore up our bases. So it is that I increasingly invest my imaginative loyalty in the communities along the western seaboard of Europe, the Gannetsway. The sea provides a start for a new civilisation, a renewed Catholic faith may provide the foundations. Meanwhile what I would love to see growing up, before I set sail on that definitive voyage into eternity, is a network of associated communities, as self-sufficient as possible, from Scotland to the south of Spain. They will only do so if they put prayer at the centre of their communal life. Sunday Mass here in the Sanctuario is a great start!

Ger surreptitiously witnesses some ladies in the Nazaré Spar.