McAllen native puts spiritual quest into words

Avrel Seale spent the better part of his adult life examining issues of spirituality and theology before a simple fishing expedition gone awry helped give him the insight he’d been seeking. The experience also gave him a metaphor for articulating his insight in book form. Seale, 40, recently published The Hull, the Sail, and the Rudder: My Search for the Boundaries of the Body Mind and Soul ($12), part memoir, part spiritual treatise, and part adventure story.

Seale, a former Monitor reporter and now editor of the University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, grew up in McAllen, the youngest son of local author Jan Epton Seale and composer and conductor Carl Seale. His spiritual quest began at an early age.

“I practically grew up inside First Presbyterian in McAllen, which really imbued me with a strong faith in God and a love for spiritual community,” he said in a recent interview from his home in Austin. “In addition, my grandfather was a minister, as were a number of others in my family tree. So while I’m not in the ministry, perhaps there’s even some genetic predisposition for me to sit and try to figure out what we’re all doing here and what this thing called God is.”

The fateful fishing trip took place in 1998 aboard Seale’s homemade sailboat as he and a friend cast off into the apparently harmless Lower Laguna Madre.

“Through the peril and beauty of the next 15 hours, I lived out an allegory of my life, both my past and my future,” Seale said. “And through the metaphor of sailing, I discovered the three irreducible dimensions of human existence — the hull, the sail, and the rudder.”

The experience and metaphor stayed with Seale and, during the next six years, he tried to mesh his beliefs, experiences and memories into one work.

“Through the workings of the hull, the sail, and the rudder, I learned that our bodies, minds, and souls can be defined by the different functions they perform as well as by their differing internal structures, and that the unique way that those three fields intersect in every person creates our identities,” he said.

“When you’ve discovered something really awe-inspiring, you can’t keep it to yourself,” said Seale.

“So I want to share with fellow searchers some big ideas to reflect on that hopefully will enrich their lives to some degree, but I also hope they’ll be entertained. I think that would be especially true for Valleyites, as much of the book takes place in their backyard, with places and real-life characters they would recognize.”

The Hull, the Sail, and the Rudder builds on the works of other spiritual writers. “I’ve been influenced heavily by C.S. Lewis, both as a child through his Narnia series, and as an adult by his apologetics,” said Seale. “In The Hull, I can see both influences coming through: the heavy use of allegory, as with Narnia, as well as a sort of conversational style of apologetic, which I learned largely from his adult writings, such as Mere Christianity.”

While Seale might not have another fishing trip planned in the near future, he has several writing projects in the works. “I’m completing a book called True Freedom and the Wisdom of Virtue, which illustrates how personal morality actually maximizes one’s choices in life, contrary to popular belief.”

“I’ve also outlined another book that will explore the interlocking relationship between war, poverty, and disease. I’m also completing the screenplay for my next movie with my film partner Jay Galvan. It is a comedy on the afterlife.”

Copies of The Hull, the Sail, and the Rudder are available on the author’s Web site, www.avrelseale.com

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Martin Winchester is a book critic for The Monitor. He is an English teacher at the IDEA Academy in Donna. Send comments to mwinchester@ideapublicschools.org.