The House of Quiet

Hutt News, Volume XII, Issue 22, 17 November 1948, Page 12

The House of Quiet

LIFE THROUGH A WINDOW

(Contributed by the Hutt Valley

Ministert,’ Fraternal.)

One night I was sitting in my car outside ihc* “Now Zealand Club” >n Romo! My driver had gone away on snine business of his own avid was long overdue. As I snl there, with the window of the door down, 1 watched the pageant of the Italian street and was plagued by all manner of people. There were people who wanted to buy my hoots and people who wanted to sell me postcards and beggars who wanted something for nothing. All manner of people were crowded at the door of the car, talking and gesticulating and trying to force things upon me. After a while 1 grew tired of them all and locked the door and wound up Iho window, and that thin sheet of glass seemed.to cut me off from ail the life and eagerness. .1 could still see all that was going on. Inti I was not. part of it. In my detachment I looked at the hawkers and the beggars, the lovers and the quarrellers, the maimed and the glamorous. I was able to watch all the pathos and tragedy, all the grime and beauty of a great city streaming past., but I was not part of it. T was a detached spectator of life. This is a parable of life. There are two ways of looking at. Cod and people. Through a window or from the road. You can look at life as a detached sped a tor, interested in everything that goes on hut taking no part in it, or you can he on (lie road mixing with people, serving people and journeying with people. We can look at life through a window or from a road. On the Rojwl;

Dr. John Mnckay tells a story of the Spanish philologist Unamuno. Unamuno met a Swedish philologist who had been studying the Maliocan dialect, and the Swede showed Unafuno his findings. "How- did you get these words?” he asked. “Oh,” said the Swede, “I asked the people of Mallorco how they said this and the other thing and they told me ami my conclusions are based on that.”

“What they have told you,” said Unamuno, “is how they know things should bo said, not how they actually say them. Let me have a try.” The Spaniard mixed with the people and met them in'their houses. With great naturalness and skill he turned each conversation into some realm where he knew the real characteristics of the popular speech would emerge. Some time later he met his learned friend again, and showed him his notebook. “This is the way people talk in Mallorco,” he said. And ho added, “Never forget that it is on the road that the truth is found.”

“Our Knowledge of People”

We do not. get. to know people by studying them. The great, things of life can never be known if you treat them as objects. You can study a scientific subject with cold detachment. hut, you cannot, know men if you only study them. 'The moment a man becomes aware that, he is beingtreated as an object be lets the curtain fall on his real self. We can know men only as we help them, serve them and suffer with them. All this may sound'very theoretical, but it is of tremendous practical importance. Truth is found on the road. We only know people as we love them and as we care for them. We know people when we enter into their lives and share their sorrows and their joys.

Our Knowledge of Clod We cannot know God unless we commit, ourselves to Him. We will never know God by reading about Him, or by arguing about Him. That, was what was wrong with the Pharisees. They knew God and men only from the detachment of t.heir windows. They were not interested in men; they were interested only in problems about men. They were not filled with compassion for the blind, nor were they glad when

blind eyes'were opened. Blind eyes concerned them only as theological problems. We have got to take sides on this, matter. “I am on God’s side and I will follow Him wherever His Spirit leads:” We know God only as we seek to know His will and do it. Our knowledge of God is not. a matter of sitting on the side line and watching. It is a matter of getting into the game. It is a matter for decision. It is a great venture. It is living out in our daily life the commands of God. We cannot know God unless we are on the road, committed to Him.