Thoughtful Moments OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 94, 21 August 1942, Page 2

Thoughtful Moments OUR SUNDAY MESSAGE

THE REVEALING DARK Jemima. my little friend next door, said an interesting tiling to me last night ; something so profound that it was amusing to hear it coming from her lips. She had had her bath, ami her supper; an'J I had read to her a story out ol' the Jungle Book; and now we were leaning together out of her bedroom window, looking into the clear, moonless, night of stars. "It's funny,*' she said; and then she stopped, as if she couldn't quite say what was in her mind, "What's funny?" I said. "When it's in the day," she said, "you sec nothing but the world we're on, and there might be nothing else, and the .fiy empty; and then, when it's night, you see stars and stars, ami worlds and worlds more than you can count even: and that's funny because it's as if you could see more in the dark than in the light; and that isn't sense really, is it?" Out of the mouths of babes . . . ! The Dark Side T have never been quite able to understand why people should object so violently—as many do —to things like pain and sorrow, to the shadowy and dark experiences of life. They lump them all together and call them the Evil that is in the world. They ask, complainingly, why God should permit this kind of thing. The only way in which they able to account for it is because of the "sin" of our first parents; and they say that if it hadn't been for that, life would' have been all open, and straight, and sunshiny, and splendid, and free, with none of the infirmities to which flesh is heir. This never quite satisfies me: nor will it .satisly Jemima, when she grows older, if she doesn't forget that idea which came into her yellowball of a hea l last night, that it is the darkness which fills the skyemptiness, and it is when the sunlight has left us for a while that we become aware of more than the earth we tread on, of the universe and universes which are about us and stretch away into the far distances and deep mysteries of lifeThe revealing dark ! Are They Shallow ? Test it for yourselves; for I don't want you to think that Jemima and I. are just talking through our hats. Ln your small circle of friends there will be what you might call the sun-light-people; and very pleasant people and agreeable, and amusing people they often are. They always live in the sunlight. They hale thi dark. They run away from it. If they possibly can manage it, they refuse burdens, they refuse pain, they refuse the cross. They are sparkling people; they danco througli life like sparks. That is one side of them. The

(Supplied by ihe Whakat'rme Ministers' Association).

other side is that they are shallow; shallow heads, often: shallow- hearts, almost always. They have no fullness. They know the little patch, the lit tie sunlit patch, on which they trip and dance, and bask: but of the depths of life they know nothing. But among your friends there are others who have borne heavy burdens. and sull'ered pain and loss; they have cried in the night, they have laboured and striven and wept and fainted; and if they have borne all this with pride ami courage, and calmness—though 1 admit that there is another way of bearing it which is not so good—they have learned wisdom in the niglrt, and understanding and faith. And you know that they are much deeper women than the sunlighters. Is not that so ? It is the revealing darje. Revelation Two years ago, when a lieav.v shadow fell upon us, some people, who didn't like shadows, took themselves across the seats to where there was sunshine ami nothing to worry about. Are they losers, or gainers? While others stayed; with the shadow and they have watched the searchlights in the night sky, and listened to the droning enemy overhead, and slept in uncomfortable shelters, and missed the abundance of things they were used to. Which of these, think you, will, when the years have rolled the night away be the wiser, the sturdier, the more understanding', in their manhood and womanhood? I have 11 o doubt about it. Have you? Miss Helen Waddell —one of my favourite writers, and a great woman—has said: "Paganism was daylight, rich in its acceptance of the daylight earth; but Christianity came first to the world as a starlit darkness, into which man steps and comes suddenly aware of a whole universe, except that part of it which is beneath his feet." And Jemima in her simple way said the same. She said: "What was empty in the day becomes full in the night; and that's J'unny, because it's as if you could see more in the dark than in the light; and that isn't sense really, is it?" Not "sense," darling, but revelation ! Dare you sit at the l'eet of a child, | and learn of her? ! The revealing dark ? There is .something beautiful about bereavement. The shedding of tears is a testimony to love, bearing witness that each soul leans heavily upon this first passion of the spirit. Grief at funerals is always difficult to witness, but no grief at all would be far harder to witness. It was said of one of the Kings of Israel that he departed without being desired. He left this earth leaving hearts unbereaved. His funeral must I have been a stark tragedy.