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Rewind to 2007 and you will find an Orlando Bloom-obsessed, much younger me who would watch marathons of the beloved Pirates. Pirates of the Caribbean is my guilty pleasure, so you can imagine my excitement when I got the opportunity to visit the place that inspired much of the Pirates franchise. Last week, Camilo and I drove to the mouth of Kingston Harbour in Jamaica to see the city that fell into the sea. Founded in 1494 by the Spanish, it was a bustling town of life, notorious for gaudy displays of wealth and loose morals. And, pirates. Like a (more) modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah, a few earthquakes and one tsunami literally sunk the city and now a few lopsided ruins remain. I had entered my dream destination. As I walked along the sideways cobblestone streets, I came across a blue plastic placard, one of many that marked the path for touring visitors. Its heading read: How Do You Become a Pirate? Immediately intrigued, I read on. But my excitement turned to sadness pretty quickly. The placard read, “As pirates have just set your ship on fire, you’re huddled on the helm praying into your last moments. Then, just as they are about to disembark your ship, they shout over their shoulder: ‘Anyone comin’ with us?’ and a pirate is born.” Suddenly, my childhood obsession made clear a trap so many of us still get caught in: Sometimes to survive, we become someone we never intended to. Every day, pirates are born. Your dad left you at a young age? Pirate. He broke your heart and left with her? Pirate. Your best friend lost their life to mental illness? Pirate. Pirates take other’s people’s things because they had to survive someone taking from them. Today’s newsletter isn’t a slap on the hand, but a safe harbor town for weary hearts. If no one has said it to you recently, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what happened, I’m sorry for who left, I’m sorry for the hole that was left, and I’m sorry for the things you had to do to make it. But you’re not a pirate at heart. And as glamourized as we’ve made them, you don’t have to walk alone, self-protecting, and taking to fill the gaps of what’s been taken from you. The pirate life is lonely, and even if justified, better is possible. Good Day Newsletters are designed to push us all a little more, out of the darkness of self-dependency, and into the light of slow healing and trusting God when things are hard. The first step of it all is finding your pirate origin story. Take some time this week to find the moment where fear, abandonment, shame or anger looked over its shoulder at you and said, “Anyone coming with us?” And take that moment to Jesus and ask Him to help you start to dismantle what it’s done in your heart. I love to watch Pirates on the open sea, but let’s let it stay with Disney and stop letting our wounds convince us that Jack Sparrow was ever really happy. Yo ho, family. Have a good day today,
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