Thinking of prayer, the mariner prayed because he was in trouble. Like the mariner, we pray to ask God to deliver us from misery and difficulty. You see people praying like this all through the Bible. People pray because they’re needy.  Another reason people pray is to praise God. That’s also super biblical. Why else do we pray? Christians pray to confess sin. Prayer should be our response in each of these situations. But one we probably don’t think of as often, if ever, is that prayer should be our response when we read the Word of God. 

I’ve always been intrigued by The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It’s an old poem. A long, old poem by a guy named Coleridge. Out of the whole thing, I think the part most of us have any knowledge of is this one: 

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

Coleridge wrote this all the way back in 1798, but we still remember it. The Atlantic just ran an article in May called “The 1798 Poem That Was Made for 2020: ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ is taking on new meaning during the coronavirus pandemic.” 

This poem tells a story. A strange story. In short, a mariner—or a sailor—shoots an albatross, which it turns out to be a pretty awful idea. The situation turns pretty grim for the sailors at sea. There’s no wind. There’s no water to drink (hence the famous line quoted above). People are seeing frightening sea creatures. And the sailors realize this is all happening because the mariner shot that albatross. That was the cause of all this. So they make him wear the dead bird around his neck. Eventually, the 200 other sailors on his ship die. Everyone dies except for mariner—the one guilty of shooting the albatross. 

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