Month: July 2016

I am lucky. I live in a house with a view. Bisecting the view is the straight line separating the sky from the ocean, the horizon. Of course, the horizon is not really a straight line. The center of my view is an optical illusion.

I had not thought much about horizons until sitting on a hotel lanai in Waikiki one early morning recently. A cruise ship sailed past, on the last leg of its inter-island journey. It carried me back to the Fall of 1965 when I was a student on the Seven Seas, the ship of the World Campus Afloat, headed across the Atlantic, New York and the Statue of Liberty fading out of sight.

There I stood, as close to the bow of the Seven Seas as I could be, looking at the vast ocean engulfing our ship and the sky above. The horizon was everywhere I looked. I felt small, insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but excited, too, anticipating adventure.

For most of recorded history, most people believed that a ship would fall over a precipice when it reached the horizon, the end of the earth. The brave and the curious sailed on and discovered that they never reached the horizon; it moved as they moved.

That morning on the hotel lanai, I refreshed my memory about distances. I was at about sea level, maybe 20 feet above. The horizon was, according to Siri, about 4 miles away. What about at home? How far away was that horizon from 900 feet above sea level? 38.2 miles. There are advantages to standing on higher ground.

When I was 18 in the middle of the Atlantic, the probable horizon of my life, the expected number of years I would live, was more like the view from 900 feet, maybe longer, with miles of ocean (life) to sail toward an illusory line in the distance. People of a Certain Age, you were there with me.

In all likelihood, the likely length of my life span today would be more like that view of the horizon from 300 feet, maybe less. That is not for sure. I cannot know the remaining distance to the horizon of my life.

Out of curiosity that morning, I Googled “Lost Horizon.” The English author, James Hilton, wrote a book by that name which was made several times into movies. From Lost Horizon, we have the name and concept of Shangri-La. I wondered about the significance of Hilton’s title.

I did not Google words about the title, only about Shangri-Law and the plot. The book was seen as a fantasy about Utopia.

Could Hilton have been seeing the horizon as an illusion and been writing about lost illusions? Was he suggesting that life is a journey and not a destination? Or was Shangri-La, the perfect place, a hoped-for horizon, always a goal, never a port? Could a place be a horizon?

I have recently read Sailor and Fiddler: Reflections of a 100-year old Author by Herman Wouk. Many know Wouk more for movies made of his books–The Caine Mutiny, Winds of War, War and Remembrance – rather than for the books themselves. He’s among America’s most-read authors.

One senses that Wouk never anticipated living 100 years. There was no longevity gene in his family. Neither did he stop thinking about and planning his next great project though he claims that this will be his last book. Most of his books gestated for years before he began to write. They were dots in the distance, indistinct, undefined.

Wouk kept sailing, the winds of hope at his back. Maybe that is the purpose of the horizon, to offer to those who take the time to look at it the promise of adventure and the companionship of hope. Maybe author Hilton, writing in 1933 and anticipating another, bloodier world war, was expressing his alarm that the next adventure of war would lead to humanity sailing off the edge of the earth.

Some mornings when we wake up and see 38.2 miles in the distance, the sky is lit up by the rising sun, its rays creating a light show on the puffy, white clouds resting on the straight-line-that-isn’t. Are they incoming or outgoing clouds? Time will tell.

Sometimes the sky is gray, shafts of sunlight piercing down like messages from angels, and there is nothing to separate the ocean and the sky in the distance except that line. Is that yesterday’s weather or tomorrow’s?

Maybe I am over-thinking. The horizon is just where the sky meets the ocean out my window, and its distance from me depends upon where I am standing. Maybe I romanticize the feeling I had there in the middle of the Atlantic, feeling small and excited all at once.

I also see dots in the distance, indistinct, undefined. I’m not clear about how they might affect my life. But, I am seeing now with more experienced eyes than I did before and with more appreciation of horizons. If the center line of my view is an optical illusion, so be it.

Daniel E. White

July 25, 2016

One Sunday, I was driving up Makakilo Drive when I saw, sitting on a bus bench, a tiny, elderly Southeast Asian woman. She was dressed in a business suit and angled on the bench to face traffic. In her hand were leaflets that she showed to drivers passing by.

My imagination created a story for her. She was a member of one of the evangelical churches meeting nearby. Her pastor has preached a sermon exhorting members to follow the charge at the end of the Book of Mathew to go out into the world to preach the gospel. She was far too shy to preach, but she could, and would, pass out leaflets.

There was little chance a driver, accelerating up the hill, would stop. A pedestrian did, a young man walking toward town. She offered him a flyer. He took it. Neither spoke, He was well down the hill before he crumpled the paper. She continued to face the traffic.

Later that day, I was working in the yard when several well-dressed people approached on foot. The older man greeted me and commented on how there is always something to be done in one’s yard. It seemed obvious that they were from a church group, and he confirmed my hunch by asking if I had a few moments to watch a video about reading the Bible.

He was gracious as I explained that we are Congregationalists, part of the United Church of Christ, so no, I would not take those few moments to watch his video.

As they left, I remembered another time and place where Judy and I asked a question that can be hard to answer.

What do your beliefs, particularly your religious beliefs if you have them, require of you?

The other time and place was a late morning at Bat Cave Temple on southeastern Bali. We saw a long line of men and women waiting patiently in the hot sun carrying loads of fruits and vegetables as offerings. The line moved, but slowly. It seemed that every person endured considerable discomfort waiting in that line. We were hot and sweaty just watching.

We asked ourselves, what do the faithful do in our country that might compare to this line of believers? More to the point, what do we do?

Students of mine who are Mormon have taken two years out of their young lives to go away from home to share their beliefs. I am certain that not everyone responds kindly to a knock on the front door by two people wanting to talk about their faith. Canvassing members of Jehovah’s Witnesses could likely tell similar stories. How intense must one’s belief be to endure daily rejection because you want to share it?

In history, how many wars have been rooted in religious belief and rivalry? How many religions have claimed to be the one true faith?

The woman on the bench was a far cry from a Crusader or a jihadist, in terms of the nature of her action. Yet she was not content just to attend church regularly, tithe, and pray for the sick.

In the poem “The Second Coming,” W.B. Yeats write: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst, are full of passionate intensity,” in describing a world in which things seemed to be falling apart because the center cannot hold. I have not held conviction with passionate intensity; I don’t feel myself to fit either of Yeats’ extremes.

In fact, I have lived thus far resisting extremes, or so I believe. We People of a Certain Age might inevitably grow past any extremes of youth as a function of aging. But I think our upbringing in 20^th century American bred us for moderation, anti-war and civil rights demonstrations notwithstanding. There has been safety in the center, right?

So it has seemed in terms of religious conviction as well. The majority of religious Americans call themselves Christian. Most Christian churches have programs to feed the hungry and visit the sick. Few Christian churches expect members to go door to door with leaflets. Fewer still would seriously exhort members to take up arms to defend the faith.

My friends who do not hold religious convictions might be reassured about now that they have avoided the situation I have described. Maybe they are the lucky ones.

My beliefs require me to act kindly and generously. Would I act otherwise if I did not believe? My belief expects me to model charity toward others without asking me to knock on the doors of strangers to explain my belief. My belief includes the importance of churches and their collective work to serve the needs of others without asking me to stand in line with fruit as an offering.

My belief does not ask me to take up arms or sit on a bench passing out leaflets. My belief seems free of passionate intensity.

Daniel E. White

July 11, 2016