DEVOTIONAL COLUMN.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13177, 8 February 1936, Page 7

DEVOTIONAL COLUMN.

THE BEAUTY OF THE COMMONPLACE (Published under the auspices of the Pahiatua Ministers’ Association). The Government Tourist Department lias a slogan, “See New Zealand first. 5 ’ There is much truth behind this slogan—the truth that we do not need to go away from home to see beauty. It is generally to be found near at hand, in the commonplace things. So often, however, we despise the commonplace, the wellknown. We have grown used to them. They have become familiar—and “familiarity breeds contempt.” Yet, it is not just in these things of everyday life that the real joy of living is found p What is unknown is clothed in mysterious beauty, while what is familiar so quickly loses its appeal. We ery for the moon. We seek glamour and romance in the tilings that are far off. We enshroud the other fellow's possessions and activities in a false beauty—and despise what is ours. So frequently this is the case. Yet the commonplace has a beauty of its own. The daily round is. not merely a soulless grind of meaningless tasks and petty pinpricks. Had we but eyes to see and ears to hear, wo should perceive the truth of which Jesus so frequently spoke—that all around us lies all the truth and beauty and goodness we need. If we would but stop and listen to the many sounds which speak of the goodness of God; if we would but cease our vain searching and see the glory of created things and the wonderful complexity oif God’s universe; if we would but be still awhile—then we should know that God is God. “Be still, and know that I am God.’’ Aye, truly our .Lord knew this: He found evidences of the goodness, the power, the love of God in the things of everyday life. And He would have His followers do the same. He bade them have eyes to see and ears to hear, that they too might see the glory of God and hearken to the unending chorus of praise which the heavens and the earth were sounding. Yes, in the commonplace tilings of li e there lio all the beauty and truth and goodness we need.

Hidden in these familiar scenes and actions are Eternal Truths. Jesus would have us search for them, till we find them. He found them. In the flowers of field He saw the creative might of God. In the birds of the air He recognised the continued Providence of God. In the activities of the gardener, He said, was revealed the activity of God the Loving Father. As the gardener pruned away the useless, branches that the vine might bring forth much and good bruit, so God pruned away the useless and the bad from our lives, that we might bring forth good fruit. As tiie branch was dependent upon the vine for its very life, so are we dependent upon Christ, the Eternal Vine. Pruning hurts, no doubt, but it is recessary. The work of the growing vine is to produce good sound fruit. That is the reason for its existence. And the work of men and women, human branches of the Eternal Vine, is to bring forth in their living good and worth-while bruit. By their fruits shall we know them.

How great a lesson Jesus found in this commonplace thing, the ordinary grape-vine. Familiar it was, yet in it and the work connected with it—the dull, the petty, the so thought meaningless work—was enshrined Truth. And so it ever is. In the familiar daily round, so monotonous. so petty, so absolutely colourless and drab as it seems to us, are unrealised charm and meaning and worth. The uninteresting and slimy-looking oyster contains a tiny pearl. But man has to search for it —and to work for it. The pearl is there. Alan must find it for himself.

And so with most of life. The pearl o great price is hidden beneath its hard shell embedded in what at first appears to be uninteresting, even repulsive. Beneath the hard exterior of many a human being lies the pearl of human love, waiting to be found. Embedded iu the frequently repelling monotony i)i the daily round is the pearl of content, of peace with God and man, of the sense of a job well done. No need to read novels and to attend the theatre to find beauty and romance of human love. Daily, hourly, its activity is to he found around us, in our homes and among our friends. Continually its voice may be heard; i* we would 1 but listen. Even its quiet sacrificing, its bur-den-bearing, its bumble service in little tilings is to be found, if wo would but be still. “Stop! Look! Listen!”—a needed warning to each of us in the journey through life. Beauty and truth and goodness: Inyo and romance: courage and faith : sacrifice and power and things well done: these, my friends, are found at our very back door. In our home—from which we go seeking “something” at artificially stimulated amusements; in our daily work, so drab, so monotonous ; in our friends, who, despite all we are, remain our friends. And all these things are ours, for the seeking. May God give us eyes to see and ears to hear and minds to comprehend.