The Holy Tugboat

A wonderful maritime blog has recently come to my attention: Tugster, devoted to all things boatish on the Hudson River, but especially tugboats. Tugboats are essential in seaports; the local guides who bring the giant ships in for a safe landing. Since the Hudson is symbolically the River Jordan and Manhattan is symbolically New Jerusalem, I found it instructive to view the job of a tugboat.

A tugboat is a small but immensely powerful little boat able to push or pull ocean leviathans to their docks. Tugs have a pugnacious, bulldog air about them, and tugboat captains are famous for their ability to stand up to the high brow Captains of liners and freighters and convince them to "tow the line".

Theodore Tugboat is the personification of the brave little tugboat, who is similar to 'Little Toot', and also 'The Little Engine That Could'.

A great ship has to surrender its helm to a tugboat, and this is where the friction between captains occurs, because the captains of great ships aren't used to being put in the subservient position, and it makes me think of myself as a great ship - an enormous Ego floating on the Sea of Being. Except this ego is kinda weary of being at sea, and would like to come in for a landing, maybe a little R&R? But maybe the only way to actually dock is to (temporarily) surrender my free will to a tugboat?

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. --John 6:44

So maybe Jesus is my tugboat? And I'm not saying there aren't other tugs in the harbor, most of them a lot newer and shinier than the ol' J, but I'm an old sea dog - I'll take the reliable tow.

Which tugs me to pop sci-fi, and the invention of the Tractor Beam - an invisible ray that draws things towards it, like a tugboat.

As Han Solo (representing the Luciferic Ego) approaches the "small moon", he and the Millennium Falcon are immediately caught in a powerful tractor beam.

The first time Jean Luc Picard (representing the Luciferic Ego) encounter the Borg cube, he and the Enterprise are immediately caught in a powerful tractor beam.

The Borg is a perfect cube, and the Death Star is a perfect sphere. Both of which 'comply' with John the Revelator's measurement of New Jerusalem.

Hmmm. Maybe tractor beams represent the Holy Spirit drawing us to the Father... like a tug boat? Gravity is the classic example of an invisible yet inexorable tug, and my sneaky spider-sense says that this is indeed what is happening... God is turning up the gravity of the situation!

Rocketry is the study of escaping gravity, of which the Nazis were particularly adept and taught the Americans all they knew. If gravity is literally "The Force", then what exactly is it we are attempting to escape? Does Gravity = Judgment? Are Masons subconsciously hell bent on the "X-Prize" because they are trying to get off the planet before... Judgment Day?

And maybe not just Masons, but their Archetypal Masters too... the Old Gods. Rats deserting a sinking ship. But not REALLY sinking, because that's just ANOTHER illusion of the Projectionist!? Maybe he's the one who is sinking, and his time is short! Spaceship earth is caught in the Tractor Beam, AKA the loving and mighty arms of the Most High Tugboat. Maybe resistance really IS futile.

Heathcliff Notes:

On the summer of '07 camping trip to Lopez Island (see The Wreck of the Zodiac), we came upon an amazing sight in the village: a perfectly restored old tractor, painted fluorescent orange and adorned with an MM logo. Still processing...