Opening Reading: Dover Beach, 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.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agaean, 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.
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.
Sermon: Gift From the Sea
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 Agaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery…
In his well-known poem, Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold reminds us that stirred up waters become turbid – that is to say, not clear – like the troubled waters over which one hopes to travel to a safe place on the other side.
The sermon title is from Anne Morrow Lindberg’s wonderful little book, published in 1955 – she referred to it as a book for women. More than a million copies have been sold. A fiftieth edition was published in 2005.
When Ed told me he was using Dover Beach for the spring concert, Lindberg’s book about the tranquility she found at the sea shore came to mind.
She wrote: “I want first of all…to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact – to borrow from the language of the saints – to live “in grace” as much of the time as possible…By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony…I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give (something back to life.)”
Not a book to race through, but to be savor slowly, meditated and mused on, until it becomes a gift from the sea.
As I was preparing the sermon, reflecting on Anne Morrow Lindberg’s quiet meditation on the sea, along came the earth quake and tsunami in Japan and the tranquility theme got pushed aside, bringing to mind Matthew Arnold’s ‘turbid ebb and flow of human misery.’
I was also reminded of Hemingway’s powerful human story The Old Man and the Sea. I remembered his description of the sea as feminine, like Anne Morrow Lindberg’s famous book, v. the masculine, like Matthew Arnold’s famous poem and Hemingway’s story where he says about the old man, Santiago:
“He always thought of the sea as la mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her. Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as el mar which is masculine. They spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.”
Hemingway’s story of the Old Man and the Sea is about the human struggle – the deep-seated struggle and the determination to survive, above all else, in spite of all the odds and all the adversities, to survive.
The way we face and handle the struggles, the challenges, the adversities, determine the development of what we call ‘character.’ I’m not talking about the old adage that suffering is good for the development of character, good for the soul. I’m talking about ‘the ebb and flow of human misery,’ the suffering that is inevitable in life, even if it is unfairly spread – some have more than their fair share!
The Old Man, Santiago, endured much suffering, so he was a heroic character – he said ‘a man can be destroyed, but not defeated; man is not made for defeat.’
There was a religious quality to Santiago – almost saintly, as his name suggests – Santiago means ‘saint James.’ The original title Hemingway gave to the book was Santiago’s Story…the story of everyman.
There’s a saintly or religious quality to Santiago.
In a similar fashion, Matthew Arnold defined religion as “morality touched with emotion.” (Which was my original title to this sermon.)
Matthew Arnold wrote about and influenced the transition in Christianity moving from a religion relying on miracles to a religion relying on natural truths – the sacredness of life on earth – the great truths found in the sea, for example.
Dover Beach was first published in 1867, when Emerson and his friends were involved in a religious exploration referred to as Transcendentalism – relying on the natural world for their inspiration, moving away from the supernatural while acknowledging the power of intuition and the value of an inspired sense of spirituality without the binding of dogma and religious creeds.
Clearly, Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” is a melancholic poem. He projects the human feeling of sadness onto the sea, as if the sea suffered and felt sad, stirring up our own sense of sadness in response to the suffering in Japan, or the suffering in Libya today – the former is suffering in response to a natural disaster and the latter is suffering in response to human cruelty.
The Sea can be harsh and cruel; we love to watch the big waves crashing on to the rocks and shore.
In Dover Beach the sea is used as a metaphor. At first, it is beautiful to look at in the moonlight, then it begins to make hostile sounds, a “grating roar,” he says; then a “tremulous cadence” that evoke a sense of sadness.
Then the sea is turned into a “Sea of Faith” — a religious sense of acceptance, free of doubts, then the ‘sea of faith’ flows back, leaving the beach empty, again.
The gift from the sea is the gift of life – we trace our origins back to the sea.
In our Responsive Reading this morning Robert Weston put it this way:
“Ponder this thing in your heart; ponder with awe:
Out of the sea to the land, out of the shallows came ferns.
Out of the sea to the land, up from darkness to light,
Rising to walk and to fly
Out of the sea trembled life.
Ponder this thing in your heart, life up from sea;
Eyes to behold, throats to sing, mates to love.
Life from the sea, warmed by sun, washed by rain, life from within, giving birth, rose to love…
Out of your heart, cry wonder: sing that we live.”
Personal story – incident at the ocean.
Marblehead Neck is a small picturesque town on the North Shore of Massachusetts. It juts into the Atlantic and its rocky coast and lighthouse provide picturesque and spectacular panoramic views.
On a September day in 1971, just after a hurricane hit the area, I took my family to Marblehead Neck to watch the waves. My four-year old son Jonathan was on my shoulders and eight year old daughter Susan was holding her mother’s hand. We climbed Castle Rock, keeping a safe distance where we could watch and feel the most breath-taking waves we’d ever seen.
As soon as we reached our vantage point I saw two young boys in yellow slickers who climbing dangerously close to the edge. They were on the lower rocks to our left and I knew they were in danger but the roar of the waves muffled my warning call. I tried to wave them back but they were wrapped in stunned attention to the huge, exciting waves . Suddenly a huge wave rolled over them, pulling one of them into the raging ocean as his mate clung to the rock for dear life, and then ran back as soon as the wave subsided.
Taking my son from my shoulders I scampered down from Castle Rock, tearing off my sneakers and jacket, preparing to dive in to try to rescue the boy who was being thrown up and down with each wave. He was visible only because of the bright yellow slicker he was wearing. Air pockets in the slicker made it a kind of life jacket.
As I ran toward the raging sea a huge wave was forming in front of me, rising up like a thirty foot monster that would devour me just as one of his predecessors had swallowed the hapless boy. I ran back. Barefoot, I scampered up the rocks reaching the spot where the drowning boy and his companion had been sitting seconds before.
I looked out at the roaring ocean and saw the yellow slicker rise on a wave before being tossed back under the angry sea like an autumn leaf. Feeling helpless, I turned toward the shore and a young man waved his arms at me to catch my attention. He held up a coiled garden hose and as soon as he got my attention he threw it to me across the chasm that separated us.
I stood for a couple of long seconds looking at the hose, wondering why he threw a green garden hose to me. I’m still embarrassed that I didn’t realize immediately that the hose would become a lifeline which we could use together to save the drowning boy. The quick-thinking young man climbed over to the rock where I was standing, took one end of the hose and tied it securely around his waist, handing the other end to me.
He yelled, “Let’s get as close as we can.” We made our way to the front of the rocks, as close as we dared, as waves crashed over us. My lifeline companion turned to me with a look on his face I’ll never forget. The look clearly said, “I’m trusting you to hold on!” I anchored my feet against a rock and braced my back and he watched and waited for his opportunity, then he jumped into the ocean and in seconds returned, holding on to the boy’s yellow slicker.
We pulled the lifeless boy onto the rocks, moving him to a higher, safer place as the waves continued to crash around us. We laid him on his side. He wasn’t breathing. I pulled some seaweed from his mouth, and we squeezed his upper abdomen in a Heimlich maneuver, and out gushed a huge mouthful of ocean. He coughed, choked and gagged, and up came more and more of the angry Atlantic’s salty water, mixed with more weeds. Slowly but steadily he gained consciousness and a more steady breath.
His glasses were cockeyed, but still on.
Before we knew it a rescue team arrived from the fire station. They made a bridge from the backyard where my companion had taken the hose and the rocks where our victim was gaining consciousness. They secured him to a stretcher and off they went.
Neighbors invited us into their home to wash up and dress the cuts we got from the sharp rocks. The emergency was over.
In no mood to watch more waves we drove home, realizing what a close call it had been.
The next day we were surprised to read in the Boston Globe about a similar incident at Chandler Lighthouse, just around the corner from the spot where our incident took place. Another twelve year old had been sitting too close was pulled into the raging ocean. A twenty one year old man dove in to save him, but he had no lifeline and no anchor. He never surfaced. Days later his body washed onto Marblehead Beach, a mile away. The boy he tried to save was thrown onto the rocks by the waves and was rescued, shaken but unharmed.
Two together can do what one alone cannot.
Closing Reading: “Sea-Fever” John Masefield
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
By John Masefield (1878-1967).
(English Poet Laureate, 1930-1967.)