Muster Stations
A few years ago, my father took our whole family on a cruise of the fjords of Norway. None of us had been on a cruise before, and my father was the only one who had ever been on the open sea at all—when he traveled the US for the first time as a young man in the 1950s.
Everything about the trip was new to me: being in London, traveling on an enormous cruise ship, encountering the people and culture of Norway. I could never have imagined the grandeur of the scenery, the air, the beauty that seemed infinite. Nor could I have imagined how I would be forever shaped by one of the most mundane aspects of the trip: a routine safety practice used at sea.
One of the first items of business on the ship is to show everyone what to do in an emergency. You are shown your assigned “muster station.” Now, muster simply means “gathering,” so your muster station is simply a designated home base should something unexpected happen. There’s something about the term, and the idea behind it, that is compelling to me.
In the Navy, a muster station is where a small group of people meet, each with a particular challenge and a particular skill. They come together knowing none of them has all the skills to make it through alone. They will have to work together. And the muster station is where they know they will find each other and figure it out.
Muster stations came to mind for me again this week during our staff meeting at Essential Partners. All of us were reeling from the tragedies piling up faster than we could even fully understand what happened. Those of us without connections to a faith or activist community expressed a simple desire for a place to be with other people to talk and reflect and share in the grief and anguish were at a loss for where to go.
In these tumultuous times, where are our muster stations?
Places for us to gather, to see what gifts of wisdom and insight and talents and connections we have to offer, and can find in others. Not places for creating policy or chanting for causes—those already exist, and have a vital role to play. But rather, places where we can share a story more nuanced than a social media meme or 140 characters allow. Places where we can encounter people with all manner of different beliefs, backgrounds, ideologies. Places to bring the complexities in our hearts, the truth of our uncertainties, and the pains of our internal conflicts Places from which to find each other when the seas are rough, where we might to pool resources, get instructions, and make plans to face the open sea.
This need not be a far-off dream. We can start experimenting with this now. Here at EP, we’ve embarked on some new practices among our staff. And we have plans to open our doors to our neighbors as a gathering place. We can help you do it, too.
A few powerful questions and some communication agreements for gathering can get a group into deep connection quickly—our practitioners can help you craft your muster station responsibly and begin to build the path toward new possibilities. Wherever you find it, or even if you have to build it on your own, be sure you make your way to a muster station soon. The only thing we know under uncertain skies is that we need each other more than ever.