Religious Life

Southland Times, Issue 24448, 30 May 1941, Page 7

Religious Life

By ICHTHUS | On Getting Above The Clouds I have been rebuked today. When I went out to my work this clouds hung low over the land, me sky was hidden, and the high mountains, that always have power to lilt ones spirits, were invisible. There was no bright sunshine. It was a grey, drear, bleak world. I had not slept well and felt depressed. The news from overseas has not been too. cheerful these recent days. The loss of. the Hood, followed by a long list of New Zealand soldiers missing in Greece, among whom we counted many friends, and sons of friends, and the knowledge of the fierce fighting in Crete, where our splendid lads are again in the thick of it, was a burden on the heart. I thought of the many homes which lay under the anxiety and strain of suspense. Walking, and thinking these dark and heavy thoughts, my first rebuke came to me. It came from the birds. I suddenly became aware that the air was full of bird song. Sharp, sweet and clear from a nearby tree came the song of a hedge-sparrow. It is usually the first song of spring, and here I was hearing it in the depth of winter, under grey skies. Listening, I found that on every tree the thrushes were singing. Then, from a little distance, I caught the deep, rich contralto of a black-bird. “Well, well!” I said to myself, “who would have thought it? The skies are grey, the air is damp and chill, the trees are bare, and the food supply is restricted, yet these birds are blithely singing as though spring were already here!” I went on more than a little ashamed of myself. Then came my second rebuke. A slanting beam of sunshine came gleaming from above through a rift in the clouds. “Ah!” said I, “above the clouds is the sun still shining.” I took off my hat, I and, being alone with no one to think my antics peculiar, I bowed to the sun I and made my apology: “Sir,” I said, “I am sorry. I had forgotten you. But, however low and thick the clouds, I you are always there.” I remembered j also a prayer of R. L. Stevenson, which II repeated. I -will not repeat it now, but will keep it to close this article.

A TALK WITH AN AVIATOR It was natural, I suppose, that, I should then recall a most interesting talk I had last January with a young aviator. Margaret and I were crossing the Foveaux Strait on dur way to Stewart Island. This young New Zealander, with three years of flying behind him, was now fully qualified. He was on leave with his wife before sailing overseas. He opened up freely at my questioning, and got really enthusiastic. I was born a generation too soon ever to be completely and fully air-minded. But I have often wondered much what it must be like to be riding away up high in the air above the clouds. On that subject he grew eloquent. He spoke of the exhilaration of the high altitudes, of the exaltation of mounting through banks of clouds till one came out high above in the brilliant sunshine and the clear air, leaving the cloud-banks below. He talked like a poet of the amazing beauty of cloud formation as seen from above, and of the new world of marvellous colours, (he pageant of heavenly beauty, often to be experienced as the rays of the sun shone upon the clouds below and around. You think of clouds in quite a different way, he said, when you see them from above. I think I know what he meant. For I once spent a whole week on a mountain above the clouds. It was that week on Mount Egmont of which I wrote last week. We ascended to the Mountain House in torrents of rain. When we rose next morning we found brilliant sunshine awaiting us. But the whole province of Taranaki below lay under a pall of cloud. Not once during that week did we see the plain below us. But day after day up there on the mountain we revelled in the sun. One sight I shall never forget. Far away to the east, out of the low-lying mass of clouds, the three snow-clad peaks of Tongariro, Ruapehu and Ngaruahoe lifted their crests.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT CLOUDS

Out of that conversation with my young aviator friend, and out of the memories it recalled, came some thoughts—perhaps I should say, truths —about clouds that do not come amiss .in our circumstances today. And, first, the thing to do with clouds is to get through them, and above them. You do not see your cloud properly till you see it from above. That is just as needful, just as profitable, and, also, just as possible with the clouds that sweep from time to time over our hearts and our lives, as it is with the clouds that sweep over the sky’s face. Possible? Yes, but you will need to climb the heights, or to use your wings.

Then, itiere is this also. Everyone who. has climbed a mountain knows, and every aviator knows, how altitude gives you a clearer and truer perspective. You do not see things as they actually are from the point of view of the level earth, when you are down among them. It is when you mount above them and look down from above, that you see them in their true proportions and relations. From that altitude, also, you see them with a quieter pulse and a steadier heart. We must not let even our anxieties or our sorrows panic us these days. Above all, and through all, keep steady. It is good, vepy good, to look down on things from above. Again—and I remember how the young airman stressed this—you realize when you get above the clouds that they are not the stable element. It is the sun that is the stable, unchanging, abiding element. Clouds are but the fluctuations of weather that come and go. They form, and change, and shift, and go. But the sun has not altered one whit. He did not cease to be there, or to send out his radiant energy, because a cloud had formed. And ever, soon or late, the sunshine returns. It is the sun that abides.

Lastly—and it was about this that the young aviator grew really eloquent —when you get above the clouds you find yourself in a new world of unimaginable beauty. What seemed a dark, dim, storm-cloud is shot with gleams of silver and flashes of gold; you float on seas of colour; you pass through pillars of burning fire; rainbows and coronas flash around you; you glimpse visions of cloud cities with jewelled gates and golden towers; you see, as John in his heavenly vision saw, “seas of glass mingled with fire.” But my space is done. I have room only to close with that prayer of R.L.S. which I promised: “And now, when the clouds gather and the rain impends over the forest and our house, permit us not to be cast down; let us not lose the savour of past mercies and past pleasures; but like the voice of a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memory survive in the hour of darkness.” Or, as the ancient Latin prayer has it, “Sursum corda”: “lift up your hearts.”