Longer Boats

Here, the journey is interrupted by a significant encounter. The pilgrim is offered a boat ride off the lonely island he is on. Who is making the offer? The captain of the ship of religion, who sails under the flag of the man-made god. The pilgrim knows he is to wait for a boat to rescue him. Is this the boat? He ponders, and something inside him says,
"No, longer boats are coming… Hold on to the shore…" because otherwise "they'll be taking the key from the door."


Longer Boats — Play it!
Track 7 from the album Tea for the Tillerman

CHORUS
Longer boats are coming to win us
They're coming to win us,
they're coming to win us
Longer boats are coming to win us
Hold on to the shore,
they'll be taking the key from the door.

I don't want no god on my lawn
Just a flower I can help along
'Cause the soul of no body knows
how a flower grows...
Oh how a flower grows.

CHORUS

Mary dropped her pants by the sand
And let a parson come and take her hand
But the soul of no body knows
Where the parson goes,
where does the parson go?

CHORUS


Comments

"I don't want no god on my lawn…"
The pilgrim doesn't want a dead, man-made idol, even if it claims to be God, on his lawn, his life. He'd rather have something living, even if only a flower that he'd have to tend.
He doesn't want a ready-made regimen, a religious observance, that's not what he's waiting for.
He wants a life in God, that he has to work at.

Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.
Philippians 2:12-13 NIV

"Mary dropped her pants by the sand…"
He sees a woman give in. She lets down her defenses and trusts a man to take her in charge. But where is he taking her? And where does he disappear to once he has her in his power?

"Longer boats are coming to win us
Hold on to the shore,
they'll be taking the key from the door."

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.
Matthew 23:13-15 NIV