A Paper Compass

During the summer of 1980, I had a job with a small construction crew building custom concrete homes in the Florida Keys. Except for me, on summer break from my sixth grade teacher position, everyone else was a “boat-person”


Now a Florida Keys boat person was not a refugee from Southeast Asia, but someone who probably lived aboard a boat and worked some each year to acquire rations for a several month voyage among the Bahamian Islands. Several of the fellows I worked beside were captains, all were extremely talented craftsmen.

Due to this nautical background much of the Cave Man Construction culture and lingo involved terms more suited to a boat and sailing than a construction site. Or at least I thought so.

As the only “landlubber” I occasionally stumbled over terms used in connection with projects I was assigned. How was I to know which side of the building was leeward? And tell me, would you know how to shave an eight of an inch off the port side of a sheet of from plywood?

Randy the chief caveman often gave directions to locations within a building based on cardinal directions. For example, “Stack the plywood over on the northeast overhang.” My bewilderment and frustrated attempts to remember where true north was in reference to any of a half-dozen building sites prompted him to assist me with a visual aid one afternoon.

I suppose after tiring from hearing my “where”, Randy drew a large compass rose on the second-story concrete slab with a piece of keel. (This is also a nautical term used for a fat kindergarten crayon. Guess calling it a crayon is too wimpy for a caveman.)

As my good fortune would have it, I had a scrap of paper. Diligently I copied the compass, just as Randy had drawn it. Randy looked up and saw what I was doing. He looked puzzled, and with a frown said nothing.

It took about two weeks before my opportunity presented itself. Randy gave me another compass direction and he was in a fair mood and I was not with anyone else. This time I was prepared, better than a boy scout. I wiped out my paper compass, unfolded it with flair, and located south-east.

Randy, drop-jawed, did not know if he should laugh or scream. I had made my point – I just did not understand the directions when given in the language of a sailor.

Many people I know have written down paper compasses in order to help them spiritually, in order to have a relationship with God. The paper compass could be a list of rules, or obeying a particular teacher of tradition. More likely it is subtle unspoken but intuitively know by the members of the group. Some pick up a paper compass due to the language that is spoken, in an effort to fit in.

Sometimes I can tell when a person follows a paper compass. Many Christians do you know. You see they insist that they are correct and questioning is not allowed. Speaking the “truth in love,” to any who begin to veer off course of their true north.


I have been handed paper compasses many times during my passage through the Institutional Church globe. Modernism infused my schooling, both religious and secular. Having an answer for every one and situation was not only possible but required. My compass pointed to absolute truth. My dilemma came as I met others who had paper compasses that pointed to different absolute truths.

As a Bible college student in the early 70’s, my paper compass pointed to the true north of evangelism. “Are you going to Heaven when you die?” Which was replaced with Evangelism Explosion in the 80’s? We had the best paper compasses, or so we were told. Apologetics and winning the lost was all that mattered. I remember one of my college roommates challenging my other roommate, who usually spent his afternoon at the beach and me with the question: “How may did you win today, I got five.” But alas, this compass pointed only to the north of argument, could we convince, out reason, sell Jesus and heaven to any stranger we might meet.

Legalism in all its rigidness and pride became my next paper compass. Godliness could be obtained by keeping the rules, but whose rules and which ones?

So what is my compass now? I no longer hold one. I seek to follow instead a guide. I seek to hear my Father’s voice through the Holy Spirit.

But the helper, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
He will teach you all things,
and bring to your remembrance
all that I said to you.
John 14 26