If you watch the waves long enough you can begin to freak yourself out a little bit. A million existential questions fall like an avalanche and you begin to really ponder just how many people there are in this world, how many decisions you are capable of making, what is time, and the overwhelming reality of humanity's limitations juxtaposed with its hunger for understanding. No matter what mankind can predict, how far science can go, what knowledge and intelligence man has unveiled, we CAN NOT fully know what tomorrow will bring. We know what to expect, but that is quite another thing. That's just crazy. The only security, the only assurance, the only hope we have and can trust in is in what Christ has already done and what He has promised to do.
I read this poem in high school and again this year in a literature class and I feel like it's fitting for this topic.
Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
I used to hate poetry because I didn't get it. It reminds me of 1 Corinthians 2:14, "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned." We often reject what we don't understand. Pride maybe? How can we have confidence in something we don't know? We get to know that something. God is revealed through His Living Word.
The sea is more than a raging force of nature in this poem; it is a vast mystery that is unpredictable, powerful, and seemingly endless. But it is also tranquil, serene, and tonight it happens to be calm. Tomorrow it may be a raging storm, but not tonight. Men before us have stood and looked out at the ocean at night to contemplate life's complexities. Human nature hasn't changed...it is in our nature to question and wonder. The tide ebbs and flows like our sorrows, and just as a beach has no solid foundation and the waves can grab the shores and fling its pebbles, people have begun to lose hope in God, society and themselves. Still, we must be true to one another because in the tempests of life we cling to love! When we look at the ocean there is a sense of helplessness and a feeling of no control. The sea can't be trusted--it has the power to destroy, but we still admire its beauty and we bask in its restorative power. The melody of waves beating upon the shores can in one time of life a haunting chant and in the next a soothing lullaby. In a raging storm we look for the beacon of light, the glimpse of land, and we cling to hope, love, and truth. That is God.
Man is in the chaos and confusion of our culture and society. We cling to the wrong things that cannot satisfy, cannot rescue us, cannot SAVE us! We forget what we are fighting for, and see only the treachery of the waves and not their beauty or the new tide they bring in. A raging storm may come tomorrow, but tonight I will "go to the window" for the night air is sweet, and we are called to face the storms when they come. We don't have to fear change...God controls the waters and heavens, he controls our today and tomorrow, and there will come a day when the storms forever end! What a land of dreams that will be :) Love you all.
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