We Rowed Ourselves Home — Field-Reading – Week 29
There are moments in history that are remembered because someone won. And then there are moments that are remembered because, for a brief instant, humanity remembered itself. The 13th of July was one of those moments. It had very little to do with football. It had everything to do with belonging.
The Norwegian men’s national football team returned home after an extraordinary World Cup. They had travelled further than anyone expected, yet they did not return carrying the greatest trophy. They came home without the title of world champions, and yet hundreds of thousands of people stood waiting to welcome them as though they had already won.
As I write these words, the final match of the World Cup has not yet been decided. Soon there will be a champion. There will be photographs with trophies, medals around necks, and history books that remember the final score. And yet I have a feeling that the greatest victory has already taken place. Because what happened in Norway that day reminded us of something far older than football. It reminded us that there is something more important than winning. It reminded us that we belong to one another.
Watching the crowds lining the streets, watching children, grandparents, families, strangers, and friends celebrating together, I found myself moved far more deeply than I expected. What I witnessed was not simply support for a football team. I witnessed a people remembering themselves. For a few precious hours, it no longer mattered who had scored the goals. It no longer mattered who had made mistakes. It no longer mattered that the greatest trophy had not been brought home. What mattered was that we had travelled together.
We had rowed together. And we welcomed one another home together. That is what touched me most, in a world where so much attention is placed upon being the best, being first, proving ourselves, competing, performing, and achieving, we were suddenly reminded that there is another way of measuring success. Success is not only what we accomplish. It is also how we belong.
Throughout this week I have continued working in an environment where I witness many systems struggling under enormous pressure. I meet people who are exhausted, overwhelmed, carrying grief, illness, and uncertainty. I watch structures that have served us for many years beginning to show their limitations, and I sense what many others are also sensing that we are living through a period where many of our old ways of organizing society are reaching their natural conclusion. Whenever old systems begin to lose their stability, fear often becomes louder.
People become divided and we search for someone to blame. We become convinced that survival depends upon standing apart from one another, and yet life seems to be inviting us in exactly the opposite direction toward deeper cooperation. Not toward rowing against one another, but toward rowing together.
This has become one of the strongest impressions I have carried throughout the week. Humanity is being invited to remember that we were never meant to cross this ocean alone. The image of rowing has stayed with me ever since I wrote the three songs inspired by this remarkable week: We Rowed Ourselves Home, We Belonged, and Remember How We Felt.
The songs are not really about football; they are about us. They are about what becomes possible when human beings move in rhythm with one another instead of against one another. When one person rows alone, they move only themselves. When many people row together, an entire community begins to move. Perhaps an entire civilization.
As these reflections unfolded, I found myself remembering another conversation that has stayed with me for a couple of years. Early in 2024, when studying theology, I experienced an telepathic dialogue with Saint Olav, Olav Haraldsson. Whether others understand that experience in the same way is not important to me. What remains alive within me is the insight that emerged from it.
The message was surprisingly simple. Before he became remembered as a king, he was a Viking. And maybe that is true for us as well. Before we become therapists, leaders, teachers, politicians, business owners, parents, presidents, or experts, we are human beings. Before we wear our titles, we belong to the same human family.
The Vikings are often remembered only through stories of conquest and battle, yet there is another inheritance that speaks to me just as deeply. They lived in relationship with nature. They read the wind and trusted the sea. They understood the seasons and knew that survival depended upon cooperation with forces greater than themselves. They did not imagine themselves separate from the Earth. They understood themselves as participants within it.
This is part of the spiritual inheritance we are now being invited to remember. To recovering a way of being that has always been available to us. Long before we are physical beings, we begin as consciousness. Before we take our first breath, life has already begun moving through us. Spirit does not arrive after the human experience. Spirit gives rise to it. This is why I increasingly experience spirituality as a deeper understanding of what ordinary life truly is. We are not simply biological beings trying to become spiritual. We are spiritual beings learning how to live beautifully as human beings.
Heaven on Earth is not something waiting for us after life. It begins every time we remember how to row together. Every time we choose cooperation instead of competition. Every time we see another human being not as an opponent, but as another soul making the same difficult crossing. This week has reminded me that belonging is not something we earn, it is something we remember.
The world may continue to reward trophies and history may remember champions. But I believe humanity will be transformed by something far quieter. By ordinary people who choose to row in the same direction. Who choose trust over fear and relationship over separation. Who understand that no system, no title, no achievement, and no victory will ever be more valuable than the simple truth that we belong to one another.
This was the real victory on the 13th of July. Not that a team came home, but that, for one extraordinary day, a nation remembered what it feels like to come home to itself. This is the invitation waiting for all of us. To row together, and to remember one another. And in doing so, to remember who we have been all along.
Three Songs – One Invitation.
Three Songs – One Invitation: Each one carries a different part of the same message, and together they tell one story.
We Rowed Ourselves Home is about remembering that the greatest journeys are never travelled alone. We move forward when we row together, trusting one another through calm seas and storms alike.
We Belonged reminds us that beneath every role, title, nationality, belief, and life story, we already belong to the same human family. Belonging is not something we achieve. It is something we remember.
Remember How We Felt is an invitation not to let that feeling disappear when the headlines fade. If we could experience that sense of unity for one extraordinary day, then it is not something we need to wait for. It is something we can choose to create, together, every single day.
These songs are about humanity. They are about the possibility that we are standing at the threshold of a new way of living, where cooperation becomes stronger than competition, where trust becomes stronger than fear, and where we remember that no one reaches the other shore alone. The melodies carry the emotion, but the lyrics carry the deeper invitation.
I hope you will take the time to listen to all three as three reflections on the same journey. A journey back to one another, back to the Earth, and ultimately, back to ourselves. This is what Heaven on Earth begins to look like. Not when one person stands above everyone else, but when we discover that we have been rowing in the same boat all along.