The Storm

"We glory in tribulations...knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience experience; and experience hope:  And hope maketh not ashamed."  Roman 5:3-5

A story is told of the great artist Turner, that one day he invited Charles Kingsley to his studio to see a picture of a storm at sea.  Kingsley was rapt in admiration. "How did you do it, Turner?" he exclaimed...his answer:  "I wished to paint a storm at sea so I went to the coast of Holland, and engaged a fisherman to take me out in his boat in the next storm.  The storm was brewing, and I went down to the boat and bade him bind me to its mast.  Then he drove the boat out into the teeth of the storm.  The storm was so furious that I longed to be down in the bottom of the boat and allow it to blow over me.  But I could not:  I was bound to the mast.  Not only did I see that storm, and feel it, but it blew itself into me until I came back and painted the picture.

His experience is a parable of life:  sometimes cloud and sometimes sunshine; sometimes pleasure,  sometimes pain.  Life is a great mixture of happiness and tragic storm.  He who comes out of it rich in living, is he who dares to accept it all, face it all, and let it blow its power, mystery and tragedy into the inmost recesses of the soul.  A victory so one in this life will then be an eternal possession.  ~Charles Lewis Slattery