Lost at Sea: Searching for a Sacramental Theology

The goal of this class is to explore the theme of “Lost at Sea” through the lens of a sacramental theology of Baptism and Creation. Just as the Spirit hovered over the waters of Creation to bring forth life from the chaos, so does Christ enter the waters of the Jordan River to initiate the New Creation. The theme of “Lost at Sea” situates one in the swirl of life and death; how life and death often exist simultaneously within human experience. This class will explore both the literal meaning of being lost at sea (shipwrecked/encounter with death/communal lament/trauma) and the metaphorical sense of lostness (spiritual/relational/familial/vocational/etc.) in our contemporary age. We will employ stories, iconography, visual art, poems, novels, music, etc. inspired by loss at sea to develop an integrative theology that make sense of how lostness at sea haunts us as human beings. Throughout this class, I hope to develop a theology of Baptism and Creation that expands our collective imagination for how we can nurture and cultivate a capacity for resilience amid traumatic experience of ambiguous loss and death.