Anchor your Soul
The Narrative
Who was he before he had no choice but to moor his soul in faith?
This is Jesus Depazz, the renegade… el capitan.
Jesus’s life wasn’t always bad. Born into a traditional Catholic family, though meager, his parents provided him with all he ever needed, including an anchor for strong faith.
He was a boat captain—ran tours for a small operation at Glover’s Reef in the south of Belize, where he educated vacationers on marine life via fishing, snorkeling, and diving excursions. Decked out in name brand sunglasses and expensive watches, the tourists would tip him with crisp hundred-dollar bills from their leather wallets and treat him to top-shelf tequila at the end of the day.
The lifestyle was easy to get used to.
It didn’t take much… a nudge in the wrong direction. A quick $250K—two days. Two tons of cocaine. He had the perfect boat—38’ Panga with triple Yamaha two stroke engines. One run from Punta Gorda to Chinchorro.
One run turned into two, then three, and he was locked into the cartel with only one way out.
His luxury watch and Costa shades cost him more than any American tourist ever spent.
Banned from his parents’ home, he spent his days alone, minding his boat, preparing for his next run.
He was alone at sea when waves began to rise and fall. The wind whipped through the jet black darkness as pellets of rain began to sting his skin. He could hear them in the distance. His engine growled and the ominous wail of sirens steadily intensified—echoing, haunting, drawing nearer until they wailed behind him. With adrenaline surging he pushed his vessel to the limits, the hull rising and falling, clapping the water under each crashing wave. Piercing through the darkness, the blinding searchlights of the Coast Guard’s vessel closed in. He idled his boat and turned toward the guards, a dozen M16s on display. He raised his arms in defeat then knelt down toward his console and with a prayer whispered on his lips, he gripped his AK47 and murmured the words, “anchor your soul.”
…and in a new form, in a new light, he was given an opportunity to exist within a different set of rules.
I was drifting alone at sea
from tempest to tempest.
Thirst began to swallow me.
I had nothing to satiate my starving soul
left empty after each storm passed—
storms that I could have avoided
had I moored my heart in a harbor of compassion
where I could watch from the distance
as clouds rolled over the horizon and billowed toward the shore,
as the waves rose and fell
and my vessel rose and fell
with each wave that crashed over it.
Had I anchored my soul in a harbor of love,
hail could ricochet off the bow
shatter the stern and
shred the sails—
but at the end of it all,
I wouldn’t be drifting alone.
Anchor your Soul in Love.