The Squall

One fine day in the summer of 1964, my parents and I went sailing on the Great South Bay along the South Shore of Long Island.  The weather was beautiful—blue sky, sunshine, a few altocumulus clouds, and a gentle breeze from the southwest.  The family sailboat was a small wooden knockabout of the Cape Cod class.  It measured eighteen feet in length, drew one foot of water with the centerboard up, and had a foredeck but no cabin.  Designed for fair weather recreational sailing, it offered minimal shelter from and little resistance to strong winds and high seas.  But it was fully seaworthy, handled gracefully, and served the family’s purposes well on an enclosed and shallow body of water.

As a sign of his devotion to my mother, my father named this boat Justine.  He rented dock space for the Justine in a bulkheaded canal called Karras Creek in Massapequa.  This was named after Peter Karras, the proprietor of the Riviera, an adjacent restaurant and banquet hall situated on a point of land which overlooked an alcove on the north side of the bay.  Peter Karras owned this property and operated the dining facilities.  As a sideline, he leased the dock space to my father and several other folks.  A small man with a big temper, he also complained loudly, viciously, and unceasingly about all the taxes he had to pay.  Every time we saw him he was throwing a tantrum about his taxes.  I think my father listened to these tirades for amusement.

The taxes notwithstanding, our family spent many enjoyable and peaceful afternoons sailing on the Great South Bay aboard the Justine.  Usually there were four of us, my parents and my brother and myself, but sometimes my grandparents came with us, too.  We only went sailing in good weather, and it was always a lot of fun.  But then one day the weather suddenly changed.

My mother and father and I were sailing just south of the Nassau Shores neighborhood of Massapequa, where the Great South Bay and the South Oyster Bay come together.  The weather had been perfect for such sailing all day.  Toward the late afternoon, though, dark clouds appeared in the distance to the southwest.  As the wind freshened and the air cooled and the dark clouds came closer, it became clear that a squall line was approaching.  My parents decided to return immediately to Karras Creek.  They brought the Justine about and started to sail northward up the channel.  With the increasing wind, they expected to reach port quickly.

The Justine moved right along with the wind on her port quarter, but the squall line approached faster than expected and caught up with the little boat.  The sky became overcast with ominous looking cumulonimbus clouds; the wind speed increased exponentially; the surface of the bay turned choppy; and heavy rain poured down on the bay, drenching the Justine and her crew.  Unable to hold her northbound course in the channel leading to Karras Creek, the little boat was blown eastward across the flats toward the opposite shore of the alcove.  With her shallow draft, the Justine made it safely through the flats without grounding.  In deeper water again, she approached a residential neighborhood with a bulkheaded shoreline between Carman Creek and Narrraskatuck Creek near Amityville.

As the Justine was blown closer to the shore, it became apparent that she would land alongside the large backyard of a white house.  Seeing our little boat arriving, a middle-aged couple came outside to assist with docking.  In the howling wind and pouring rain, they helped secure the Justine to their dock, and then they insisted that we come inside their house to warm up and dry off.  

These kind people were Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro, a Jewish couple with grown children. They proved to be very gracious and compassionate hosts.  They explained that they had seen what trouble we were in, and they wanted to help us if they could.   When it became obvious where we would land, they were ready for us.  With no hesitation, they took the three of us, complete strangers, into their home.  They gave us towels so we could dry off, made hot tea for my parents, and fixed a light supper for me.  Some time afterwards, when the rain and the wind abated, Mr. Shapiro returned outside with my father and me.  He helped us check over the boat and bail out the accumulated rain water.

With the squall moving eastward out of the area, the rain ceased and the sky once again became clear.  My parents decided that it would now be safe to resume our voyage and return to Karras Creek.  The three of us thanked Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro for their kindness and hospitality and bade them farewell.  Embarking once more aboard the Justine, we made the short sail westward in the twilight and across the flats to Karras Creek.  We arrived there without incident.  We tied up the boat, furled the sails, stowed all the gear, and then drove home.

My parents spoke often of this little adventure in subsequent years.  They appreciated the kindness of the Shapiros, and they remembered this couple fondly.  Like the Good Samaritan of the New Testament, Mr. and Mrs. Shapiro tended to the needs of strangers caught in an emergency.  They were indeed a credit to the great Jewish faith.

As for me, I was six years old when this took place.  Despite the intensity of the weather, I was not frightened.  I felt safe through everything because I knew that my parents would take care of me.  My mother, in particular, had had extensive experience with sailboats on the Great South Bay when she was younger.  She and my father knew what they were doing.  So I had no reason to be frightened.

Many years later aboard larger vessels on more violent bodies of water, I encountered storms of vastly different proportions.  With stronger winds and larger waves, and covering a much greater surface area, these storms were not simply local squalls but formed substantial parts of the global weather system.  They raged not just for hours but for days and sometimes for a week and more. Even long afterwards, they remain memorable: aboard the Rigel and the Waccamaw in the Mediterranean, on the Mercury in the Caribbean, the State of Maine and the Victoria in the North Atlantic, the Comet in the North Pacific, and the most violent voyage of all, aboard the Wilkes in the far North Atlantic.

While each of these is a good case in point, the rough ride on the Wilkes north of Scotland is perhaps the most illustrative.  With wind speeds of 75 knots and more—hurricane force—and wave heights ranging from 25 to 40 feet, the ship pitched and rolled without letup.  Waves crashed over the foredeck continuously.  Walls of spray threw themselves over the entire superstructure.  As soon as the ship emerged from one wave with water hurriedly draining over the side, the next one would hit and drench the vessel again.  The repeated onrush of water coupled with the constant and extreme pitching, rolling, and yawing motions of the ship made for a memorable but exhausting voyage.  A scan of the horizon through binoculars from the bridge revealed an angry ocean with waves so mountainous that their crests collapsed under themselves and turned to masses of blowing and bubbling foam on the wave tops.  Endless rows of such waves marched inexorably toward the Wilkes, and as they arrived they lifted the little ship high up on their crests and then plunged her down into their troughs and covered her with a rush of violently churning water.  Occasionally waves would break over the Wilkes’ bow, and the descending pile of water crashing down onto the foredeck would cause the entire hull to shudder and lurch and twist  under the enormous weight.  But then the bow, being lighter than the water, would leap upwards again.  As the torrents of seawater then poured overboard, the next wave would strike and the cycle would be repeated.  This continued day after day and night after night until the passing time became a blur.

By comparison, the squall that blew the Justine off course on the Great South Bay was not so bad.  Put in perspective, the wave trains that assaulted the Wilkes would completely obliterate the low-lying and sandy South Shore of Long Island.  But just as the squall that caught the Justine did not give cause for fright, neither did the storms that caught the larger vessels in subsequent years.

When I was a little boy aboard the Justine, I relied on my parents to take care of me, and they did.  As an adult aboard the Wilkes and other ships, I was more self-reliant and better educated in the ways of ships and the sea.  A knowledge of meteorology, oceanography, shipboard stability, and heavy weather shiphandling forms an important part of the Merchant Marine license exams.  These are subjects which every Master and mate must know.  I had studied them in preparation for the exams, and I used them daily aboard ship.  Understanding how the weather works, how the ocean works, and how a ship reacts to the weather and water enables one to take the elements in stride and realize that rough voyages are normal.  Furthermore, the Wilkes and her fleet mates were well maintained vessels.  All the ships of our fleet were structurally sound with positive stability and full watertight integrity.  Despite the occasional grumbling of the practitioners at sea for the administrators ashore, our fleet was well run and properly maintained.  So again, I had no reason to be frightened.    

As an old proverb holds, knowledge is indeed the key to understanding, and understanding frees one from fear.  As a child aboard the Justine, I knew that my parents would take care of me no matter what happened.  I understood their love and concern for me, and so I knew I was safe.  Aboard the Wilkes and other vessels in rough weather, I knew how the forces of nature operated and why the sea and the ships upon it behaved as they did.  I understood the laws of physics, and so I knew I was safe.

But there remains one more factor.  Because I have studied the scriptures, I have learned the fullness of the Gospel.  I know that I am a child of a Heavenly Father who loves me, cares about me, and wants me to return to him after my earthly voyages are complete.  I understand that I entered this life at his bidding, and that I will enter the next life at his bidding, too.  I further understand that no matter how extreme the storms of this life become, God will take care of me, both here and in the hereafter.  I can trust his infinite wisdom and love, which supersede both natural parental love and the laws of physics, and so I have no reason to be frightened.

The awestruck and perhaps frightened psalmist prayed, “Thou rulest the raging of the sea” (Ps. 89:9), but I think the Lord’s angel said it best:  “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy…” (Luke 2:10).

The Screamer

Screaming Pete, as he was called behind his back, commanded the Victoria for a time.  It was his last assignment before he retired, and it seemed that he wanted to go out with a bang.  When I joined the ship someone warned me, “This Captain screams at everyone a lot.  It doesn’t mean anything, so don’t take it personally.  He just likes to scream.”

This fellow was quickly proved right.  Screaming Pete lived up to his nickname, especially in port.  The Victoria was a fairly busy ship, so something was always going on during port visits.  Loading and discharging cargo, repairing machinery, training of new crewmen, shifting between berths, scaling and painting the decks—the Victoria did it all.  With all this activity and a multitude of contractors streaming on and off the ship, it was inevitable that things would get mixed up once in a while.  Whenever this happened, Screaming Pete let loose.  Those who did not know him well either cowered in fear or ran away in terror.  Those who did know him responded by telling him what he wanted to hear and continuing with their work.  This method always restored peace.

At sea, Screaming Pete was much quieter.  He seldom raised his voice, and he was clearly more relaxed and less stressed than he was in port.  The sea soothed him, even when it involved a rough North Atlantic crossing.  Only on one occasion did he do any serious screaming, but strangely, he screamed about something that had not gone wrong but was normal procedure.

On the first leg of her voyage from Charleston, South Carolina, to Holy Loch, Scotland, the Victoria rode the Gulf Stream.  This current always added a few knots to the ship’s speed, improving fuel economy and putting the vessel a bit ahead of schedule at the outset.  Getting ahead of schedule early in the voyage was good, because anything could happen subsequently to cause delays.  One afternoon on the twelve to four watch Screaming Pete came up to the bridge and examined the chart with me to see where we were and how we were doing.  Dismayed that the ship was not as far ahead as he wanted her to be, he started looking for a reason.  Glancing in the logbook, he noticed that the recorded propeller revolutions were slightly lower on the four to eight watch than on the others.  Deciding on the spur of the moment that that was the cause of the problem, he threw a screaming fit.

“What’s wrong with that second engineer?!” Screaming Pete shrilled.  “He’s dropping turns!  No wonder we’re losing speed!  He’s dropping turns!  What’s he thinking?!  What’s wrong with him?!  Why ever would he do this?!  I’m gonna have a word or two with the Chief about this!”  And he stormed down the stairs shrieking, “Chief! Chief!  We’ve got a problem!” as he went.

Unable to get a word in edgewise, and in fact knowing better than to even try, I could not remind the Captain that the second assistant engineer had to blow tubes twice each day.  Screaming Pete knew this very well, and had he been reminded, he would have immediately understood.  In the boilers, soot built up on the banks of water pipes, called tubes, that carried the water which would be boiled into steam and then used in the turbines.  Blowing tubes involved diverting a small amount of this steam, which reduced the propeller revolutions very slightly, and using it to blast the soot buildup off the boiler tubes.  If this were not done, the soot buildup would eventually become large enough to constrict the flue and prevent the combustion gasses from escaping.  They would be trapped in the combustion chamber and prevent sufficient oxygen from reaching the fires.  Left uncorrected, this condition could eventually shut the whole ship down.  Neither Screaming Pete nor any other Captain would want that to happen.

Screaming Pete’s voice trailed off as he hurried below to chase down the Chief Engineer.  After a few minutes, both men came up to the bridge, and Screaming Pete showed the Chief the logbook entries that indicated the average propeller revolutions for each watch.  Very calmly and patiently, the Chief explained the necessity of blowing tubes twice a day, especially on an older vessel like the Victoria that carried less than state-of-the-art machinery.  Screaming Pete listened quietly.  When the Chief finished his explanation, Pete authorized him to blow tubes as often as necessary.  Then he and the Chief thanked each other and went their separate ways.

Screaming Pete had been going to sea all his adult life.  He held an unlimited Master’s license, and he most certainly knew all about blowing tubes.  The rest of us also knew about blowing tubes, and we knew that Screaming Pete knew.  Why all the commotion about such a routine thing, then?  Some of the guys speculated that the old man was dreading retirement.  Whatever the reason, the rest of the crossing was peaceful.  Once in port again, though, the screaming resumed at full volume.

In all fairness to Screaming Pete, he was not the only screamer in the fleet, and neither was the Victoria the only ship to reverberate with such din.  A few other examples come to mind.

One afternoon when the Waccamaw was undergoing overhaul in the shipyard in Norfolk, I came across a fire station on the main deck that was gushing water.  Someone had left the valve in its fully open position, and the water just poured out and flowed all over the deck collecting sandblasting debris and making a muddy mess as it went.  Not finding any evident reason for this, I figured that it must have been an oversight before the water pressure was restored to the ship.  No sooner had I closed the valve than the first assistant engineer materialized out of nowhere and started screaming.  “What do you think you’re doing?!  Who do you think you are?!  Who said you could touch that valve?!  Since when do we need your help?!  Why can’t you mates mind your own business and leave the rest of us alone?!”  He stomped his feet and shook his fists as he shrieked these interrogatives at me.  Then he quieted down and mumbled for a brief moment.  Regaining his breath, though, he continued even louder and shriller than before. “Get outta here!! We don’t need you!!  Get outta here right now or I’ll take this fire axe and cut your arms off with it!!”  He turned toward the axe on the bulkhead and started to reach for it.  Two shipyard workers who were standing nearby exchanged horrified looks.  I didn’t wait to see if he would really use the axe on me.  I found the chief mate and told him that one of the engineers had gone off the deep end.  The altercation was later resolved in Captain Rigobello’s office.  Denying everything, the engineer asserted that I should take up a second career as a writer of fiction.

On another afternoon when the Saturn was undergoing an overhaul in Mobile, Alabama, a shipyard worker with an acetylene torch was about to burn an access hole in a steel bulkhead.  He had the torch fired up and was just about to apply it to the steel when Captain Aspiotis happened to come along and asked him what he was doing.  The yard guy explained, and then Captain Aspiotis asked him, “Did you look on the other side of this bulkhead to see what’s there, to see if it’s safe?”  The yard guy had not.  The Captain went with him, and they both found that the other side of the bulkhead was a linen locker.  Shelves filled with towels, tablecloths, napkins, sheets, pillowcases, aprons, and mess jackets ran from the deck to the overhead on the other side of the bulkhead.  If the yard guy had started in with the acetylene torch as he had been poised to do, all of this would have gone up in flames and could possibly have set a large part of the ship ablaze.  Captain Aspiotis blew up like a torpedo.  He screamed in Greek and English, called the yard guy more terrible names than any of us knew existed, and made himself heard all over the ship and on the pier as well.  He outscreamed Screaming Pete, and with good reason.  If he had not come along at just that moment when the shipyard worker was about to start in with his torch, a disaster would have resulted.  Besides the obvious property damage, people could have been seriously injured or even killed.

But that was an extreme case.  Most of the screaming that took place aboard ship was prompted by lesser causes such as mess hall disputes or poker games gone bad.  Only Screaming Pete screamed about everything and anything, and none of that was life-threatening.  Furthermore, most of the screaming sessions took place in port.  At sea, things were different.

I think the main reason for this was that being at sea was just different from being ashore.  The water had a soothing effect on almost everyone aboard every ship.  There were a few exceptions who would not be soothed by anything, but only a few.  The vast majority in every crew were glad to get underway and escape from shoreside entanglements that often cost too much money and produced unpleasant results.  Some of the fellows said that they felt safer on the ocean than they did ashore, often meaning that they were safe from themselves and their impulses when they were at sea and away from temptations.  Besides that, however, peace and quiet reigned at sea.  There were no man made distractions; there were only the basic elements of the sea and sky.  These elements with their atmosphere of peacefulness combined to form a place that was set apart from the everyday noise and commotion of human activity.  Even in heavy weather with the ship taking a mauling from the wind and waves, the sea remained a place set apart. 

There are places on land like this, too.  Often, one must travel far from the populated areas in order to find such peace and quiet or to find a natural setting unsullied by human hands and thus set apart.  Mountain ranges, river valleys, forests, meadows, and lakes often serve as places set apart for people seeking relief from the noise and commotion of life.  Many people report that they can engage in quiet and reverent meditation and feel the Spirit in such locations.  For me, however, the great waterways of the world were, and still are, the places set apart for quiet reverence and feeling the Spirit.

But there are exceptions.  The most obvious one, of course, is the temple.  Special events take place in the temple, and it has been my family’s great privilege to participate in hundreds of temple ordinances for deceased ancestors and relatives.  We could not avoid meditating in quiet reverence and feeling the Spirit during these ordinances.  Furthermore, we experienced the ineffable sense of accomplishment that comes from getting something extremely important done.  This was always particularly so in the baptistry, where the ordinance work started, and in the sealing room, where the ordinances were concluded.  The peace, the quiet, the serenity, and the sense of being in a place set apart from the outside world all contributed to the sacredness and specialness of the temple ordinances.

A few other locations of this nature also come to mind.  First is the Sacred Grove.  My initial visit there took place before I joined the Church, actually, before I had any intention of joining the Church.  I had previously read about the First Vision that had taken place there in 1820, and I believed in it.  When I walked into the Grove, a sensation which at the time I could not describe came upon me.  I received the impression that the Grove was a very special place, a unique place, hallowed ground, and that I was extremely fortunate to be able to go there and visit it.  I came to understand later that I had felt the Spirit there.  I did realize at the time, however, that the Sacred Grove was the perfect place for quiet and reverent meditation.  Seizing this opportunity, Miss Patty and I gathered the children on a bench near the entrance to the Grove, and she quietly read the Prophet Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision to them.  The children were all very young then, and they found this fascinating.

Outside the Sacred Grove, of course, life went on.  Occasionally we could hear traffic noise on the local roads and the whistles of trains as they sped through Palmyra.  These sounds were very distant, though, and they did not seem at all intrusive.  Something about the acoustics in the Sacred Grove had a mitigating effect on these outside noises.  A much more prevalent sound was that of birds chirping—a cheerful, uplifting, and musical sound that added to the ambiance of the Grove.

Another such set apart place is the nearby Hill Cumorah.  Just as in the Sacred Grove, peace, serenity, and an overriding calm sensation reigned there.  Like the Sacred Grove, the Hill Cumorah is hallowed ground, a special place that filled a unique and critically important role in human history.  It also lends itself to quiet and reverent meditation, to a contemplation of the singular events that occurred there and their significance for the entire human family.

Finally, several sublime sites that are set apart from the secular world and serve a purpose above and beyond the commonplace are the various cemeteries my family and I have visited in the course of our genealogical research.  All of these are oases of peace and quiet, plots of hallowed ground dedicated to the repose of our deceased ancestors and relatives.  Visiting these cemeteries is like entering a temple.  An atmosphere of quiet reverence prevails.  People follow a certain code of conduct.  They pray.  They converse quietly.  They place flowers on the gravesites.  They show courtesy to each other and deference to the grieving.  They are on their best behavior.

The one cemetery we visit most often is Holy Rood in Westbury, Long Island, in the suburbs of New York.  My grandparents are interred there.  A fairly large property, one end of Holy Rood borders on downtown Westbury, which is always busy.  The other end borders on an even busier six-lane traffic nightmare that connects suburban shopping centers.  Ironically, this street is named Old Country Road.  When turning off this road to enter Holy Rood, it always feels like we are entering a different world.  Holy Rood is always peaceful, quiet, and serene.  It is also a house of order.  Designed and maintained to the highest standards, it is immaculately clean.  Tall trees and strategically placed shrubbery blot out both the sight and sound of most of the traffic.  Flowers decorate many of the grave sites, and a carpet of thick green grass seems particularly inviting after driving on acres of ugly pavement.  It is truly an oasis, a place set apart from the noise and commotion of the secular world.  Like the Sacred Grove, the Hill Cumorah, or any temple, Holy Rood is an ideal place to engage in quiet and reverent meditation.

In a world that is all too often filled with noise and commotion, the opportunity to escape from it all, even for a short time, raises us to a higher spiritual plane.  As President Boyd K. Packer has remarked,

There are few places now that offer an opportunity to meditate in quiet reverence.  What a privilege it is to sit quietly without conversation and direct the mind to reverent and spiritual thoughts!  It is a refreshment to the soul.¹

A long voyage across an ocean which by its very nature is set apart from the mainstream of human activity is one of the best situations that offer such an opportunity.  The sea repeatedly demonstrated to me its ability to calm even the most hot-tempered and hard-headed personalities.  It even had the power to settle Screaming Pete down.  Unfortunately, it’s not readily available to everyone.  What a shame.  The majority must then look elsewhere for this refreshment.  But such set apart places that invite quiet meditation and reverence do exist; one need only search out a site that resonates with one’s spiritual leanings.  Wherever that may place be, it will serve as a refuge from the noise and commotion that the secular world constantly screams at people.  It will be an oasis of peace and quiet that even the most strident screaming cannot penetrate.  It will prove the prophecy of Isaiah:

In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength (Isa. 30:15).

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¹ Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1980, p. 58.

The Lights along the Shore

The Victoria made several voyages to Scotland.  She carried military cargoes between the naval base in North Charleston, South Carolina, and the submarine facility in Holy Loch and the James Watt Dock in Greenock.  Holy Loch was not actually a place, but a body of water, an arm of the Clyde River downstream from Glasgow.  In Holy Loch, the Victoria moored alongside another ship, a submarine tender that was semi-permanently anchored a short distance offshore from the small village of Sandbank.  Greenock, a busier and more populous coastal town, lay more or less diagonally across the Clyde from Holy Loch.  The nature of the Victoria’s work required her to stop in both places for loading and discharging of different types of cargo.

Much of this cargo handling was done at night.  When finished in one spot, the ship would shift berths, that is, move across the water to the other spot.  Day or night, the west coast of Scotland is a magnificently beautiful place.  By day, rugged, craggy mountains rise up from the dark blue water and pierce the gray sky with their rocky peaks and austere foliage.  By night, these same mountains seem less rugged as they take the form of black masses rising from a black surface into a black canopy.  All would be black, but different shades of black and therefore subtly distinguishable.  Along the southern shore of the Clyde runs a motor road.  This would be invisible at night from the water except for a string of yellowish lights that ran alongside it.  These lights punctured the blackness, but they punctuated it, too.  The off-yellow lights shone forth as immovable route guides in the darkness; they also added something to the darkness that surrounded them, but whether by contrast or by complement I could not tell.  Many times I stood on the deck of the Victoria as she shifted between Holy Loch and Greenock and looked upon this string of lights.  It did not run straight, as the coastline was curved.  Nor did it run level, as the route was hilly.  It undulated, so to speak, like the waves of the sea, although in this sheltered area the water was always fairly calm.  Sometimes these lights would show their reflections in the water close along the shore.  Many times they would inspire me to contemplate the theological significance of light.

Such were the lights along the shore of the Clyde River on the west coast of Scotland.  Of course, they were installed to guide automobile traffic on land, but the traffic on the water used them as route markers, too.  Aboard ship, one uses all available aids to navigation.  Lights along the shore are perhaps the oldest form of navigational beacons, and they are no less important today than they were in centuries past.  To a seaman, these lights that shine in the darkness offer the one blessing desired above all others: safe passage.  Even more than the proverbial fair winds and following seas, a safe passage culminating in a safe arrival is what every seafarer wants.  Lighthouses exist because the approach to land is often the most hazardous part of a voyage.  At all times, but especially at night, invisible or only partially visible dangers lurking along a coastline— rocky outcroppings, sand bars, sunken wrecks—could easily destroy a vessel that chanced upon them.  Dangers such as these are marked by lights to warn ships away.  Safe routes along a shore and in and out of ports are also illuminated, but to show the way.  Both lights that warn of danger and lights that show the way offer safe passage to the navigator who heeds them.  After a long voyage, and especially after a rough crossing, these lights along the shore are a very welcome sight.

The metaphorical value of the navigational lights becomes clear in my favorite hymn:

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy

From his lighthouse ever more.

But to us he gives the keeping

Of the lights along the shore.¹

The importance of the lighthouse keeper’s job has long been recognized as a position of very serious responsibility.  Too many lives have long depended on his faithfulness in maintaining the light for incompetence or laziness to be tolerated.  A glance through the history of light-keeping reveals the esteem in which these men and women have been held.

Dark the night of sin has settled;

Loud the angry billows roar.

Eager eyes are watching, longing,

For the lights along the shore.²

My eyes, too, have watched for and longed to finally see the light in the critical spot on the shore.  Enroute to Holy Loch aboard the Victoria, Inishtrahull was the first major light we would see on the north side of Ireland.

Trim your feeble lamp, my brother;

Some poor sailor, tempest-tossed,

Trying now to make the harbor,

In the darkness may be lost.³

There were always plenty of angry billows and no shortage of tempest, either, to make the typical North Atlantic crossing a rough one.  After a week or more of such weather, Inishtrahull was a very welcome sight.

Let the lower lights be burning;    

Send a gleam across the wave.

Some poor fainting, struggling seaman

You may rescue, you may save.⁴

After a rough crossing, it was always a relief to see that bright gleam reaching toward us across the waves.  Soon afterwards, the Victoria would reach the calmer water between Ireland and Scotland and then pick up the pilot who would direct her up the Clyde to Holy Loch.  Not that this was an easy job in the rain and fog of Britain, but we felt the unique sense of satisfaction mingled with anticipation that comes at the threshold of completing a long and tempestuous voyage.

“I am the light of the world,” the Lord tells us.  “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).  To a mariner emerging shoreward from the dark expanses of the sea, the lights along the coast are very much “the light of the world” in a strictly physical sense.  They provide safe passage as he follows them to his destination   In times of danger, they become lights of life.  There is no question of this, for ships have been wrecked and seamen have perished because of the absence of such lights.  But the Lord speaks to us on the cosmic level.  If we consider life as a voyage from the premortal to the postmortal ports, then the aptness of the metaphor becomes clear.  Just as the light shining in the darkness of a seacoast stands to guide seamen on a safe passage, so the Light of the World stands to guide all men on a safe passage to the ultimate seaport of Heaven.

With this destination on our sailing schedule, we can then in faith echo the beautiful prayer of John Henry Newman:

Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom;

Lead thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home;

Lead thou me on!⁵

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¹ Philip Paul Bliss, “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy,” in Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1985, p. 335.

² Ibid.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ John Henry Newman, “Lead, Kindly Light,” op. cit., p. 97.