Could it be that they, with their wonderful playfulness, and whom we like to think of as the most intelligent manifestation of creation after ourselves, actually expect something of us? Could it possibly be that, as St Paul said of the whole of Creation, they are 'waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God'?

Perhaps it is as well that they have been around so very much longer than us; not being in such a hurry, they may not be so sorely disappointed so far as we might expect, and may be able to take a longer term view of things. But how sad, considering that they approach us with such trusting curiosity, that their experience of men to date has largely been one of mayhem, massacre, and the pollution and destruction of their beautiful world! Will those 'sons of God' ever show up?

2. 'I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us,' wrote St Paul in that same amazing 8th chapter of his letter to the Romans that I referred to yesterday, and he went on 'because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God..'

Most surely this is a wild and dangerous hope; if we set our hearts upon it, how can we settle for the usual meanness, and be content with the usual little props and petty consolations that we generally use to keep going from day to day? Worldly wisdom would have us resist and suppress such madcap notions, which are inclined to render our usual shoddy compromises and acceptance of futility, quite impossible.

Well, what might it possibly be, this 'glory that is to be revealed' ? St Paul had already suggested a few pointers; in chapter 1 of the same letter for instance, he had written that 'Ever since the creation of the world, his (God's) invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.'

'Invisible' and yet 'clearly perceived' - that is a conumdrum, especially for us unfortunate modern people whose senses are dulled and who are generally so far from nature. And yet, if we come across a painting of animals in a cave some few thousand years old, we exclaim triumphantly 'ah, intelligent man was there! How beautiful!' What can we possibly exclaim if we really perceive the animals themselves, and all the other wonders of creation, but 'my Lord, my God!'

As long as the sense of wonder lives in us, there is hope; if it dies, hope dies. Thank you, God, in your great whales and your dolphins, for fostering our sense of wonder and of joy!

3. Going back yet again to that 8th chapter of St Paul's letter to the Romans, he wrote that 'in this hope (the hope of glory) we were saved'. But he went on, 'hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?' In other words, if you could see the Glory clearly, you would not have to hope for it - and yet it is in this blind hoping that our salvation lies.

The scientists reckon that whales evolved from land creatures that took to the sea. What kind of blind hope drew them there? What constrictions did they flee? And what of men who take to the sea? It is generally an inhospitable, uncomfortable place, besides being frequently dangerous! If one is not simply forced to it, one must be drawn by some kind of hope; a dim sense of glory of one kind or another. It would be an interesting exercise, to catalogue all the many kinds of glory that people have sought in going to sea! Whatever the way, one has to be drawn from the familiar comforts and the familiar identity of one's home; one faces out into the unknown, leaving one's place and one's country behind.

Hilaire Belloc called the sea 'the common sacrament of man' ; in other words, it is a way of relating to God that is available the world over, to people of every race and creed and culture. Out on the ocean, every other consideration pales into insignificance besides the fact of one's being a human. Everyone can talk the language of being there, of managing and surviving, and will be interested in all the different ways of doing so, and in that dim hope of glory that drives people to be there at all, and without which they are the most unfortunate of men; and any human being worthy of the name will do their best to help others when they are in trouble there.

I think that at the back of their minds, seamen more than most people tend to have a sense of the mystery of God's purpose, which, according to St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, 'He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.' But in chapter 5 of his Gospel, St John has Jesus, 'the King of Glory', asking, 'How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?'

4. Where did Jesus get the idea of recruiting a gang of fishermen to be His apostles? Generally they are regarded as being a rather unreliable, wild and shifty lot! The world over, in common with other sailors, they have a reputation for drinking too much. Why should this be? Well, we hear a lot of stuff these days about alcoholism being a disease, a chemical addiction and so on. How about listening to what alcoholics themselves have to say?

In my experience they are generally coming from a sense that life is impossible, that they just don't want to be where they are, that they cannot cope with life, they cannot put up with things any longer. They have some dim sense that life ought to be better, it could be better, if only.... They also have some dim sense of glory out there, that they have missed out on, but if only they could get a hold of it, things would be different! They are not receiving a satisfactory sense of glory where they are, but they do know obscurely that they need it.

There are other factors that perhaps push fishermen in particular in the direction of 'the glory that comes from the only God'. Their treasure, their glory, is out under the sea where it cannot be seen. They must go out again and again to seek it in faith, with nothing but experience and tradition to guide them, and often they will return empty-handed after much labour. They must be canny, know when to listen to the old grey-beards, and when to ignore them, when to exercise courage and when to be prudent, when to shoot their nets and when to stay at home. They must have patience and perseverance, listen to the skipper, and work together, helping each other and putting up with each other's weaknesses.

It is well-known that landsmen get sea-sick when they go to sea, but what is less generally recognised is that seamen get land-sick when they come ashore. At sea, life has a simple frame-work, a focus, that goes to pieces when one hits the land. Central to this frame-work is the skipper, who has an unique authority at sea; but it only really works when he and his crew know who the real boss is, and I don't mean that it is him; the real boss is the sea, weather, reality, God. The sequence follows, for a person cannot willingly put themselves under the authority of brute matter, or of anything less than another person, and a very special person at that. As a temporary compromise, one might accept that the authority aboard ship is vested in the skipper; but if the skipper forgets that his authority rests on God, he is on the road to madness, and his ship is in grave danger.

5. So after all, dear old St Peter made a good first pope. Let us listen to his own understanding of authority as set down in the first chapter of his second letter: 'First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.'

Those who have tried to reduce the Christian faith to a mere code of ethics, and who habitually express it in terms of 'you should not do this or that', or even 'you should do this or that', are sadly deficient. Try telling an alcoholic that he should give up drink! He knows that already. Christ offers us something much more profound and efficacious. One might call it a dream of Glory, so powerful that it can master every other dream, both good and bad. One might also call it a true sense of reality.

Something that has always fascinated me about the sea, and in a strange way delighted me, is the arbitrary nature of its hazards. Here there is deep water, but beside it there is a rock. There is no accounting for it; it is simply a fact. You can be sailing along beautifully, all your sails pulling to perfection, but if there happens to be a rock in your path, disaster! You may not be able to see it; keep your eyes skinned, but also consult your chart and know where you are. You had better pinpoint that rock in advance, not wait to find out about it by hitting it, but avoid it, even if it means putting the sails flapping and everything awry, not to mention all the crew to grumble!

Hopefully, the invisible hazards sharpen our perceptions, so that at last we become aware of the invisible glory too. I return to Romans 8 'If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.....' Perhaps we can hear an echo of them, in the sighing of the sea!

Joe Aston

November 2002.