Unfinished Rainbows, and Other Essays

by George Wood Anderson

Let no to-day become yesterday, except in the calendar, as we reckon time. Each day must become part of us as we live in an ever-present now. The same alphabet we learned in childhood is ours to-day. Because we did not forget it with the setting of the sun, it served us to-day as we spell out, in polysyllables, a newly discovered truth. The alphabet did not fade with the death of the day we learned it, so that it is now part of our lives. As we cannot think apart from the words we learned long ago; and as we cannot calculate, save as we use the first-learned characters from one to ten; so, in the developing of the soul, we must not lose one single hour of prayer or inspiration of a noble purpose.

Both building and growing are alike in this—they are processes of “adding to.” Brick added to brick and timber added to timber means a stately building. Cell added to cell means growth of body and increase in stature. But handling brick is not enough, they must be placed with a purpose and kept firmly fixed in the place desired. The brick of yesterday must be where it can have added to it the brick of to-day. Physical growth depends upon the keeping the cells of yesterday for a foundation upon which to build the cells of to-day. Christian living is similar. We build a character and grow a soul but the process is the same, with both character and soul. We gain by adding to. Therefore we must not permit any of our sunsets to fade away. All that we have gained through prayer and Christian service must be held to brighten each new morn. The spiritual victory over temptation, the answer to our intercessory prayers, the moment of spiritual illumination as we read the Bible, all these are priceless experiences upon which to add the newer conquests of to-day. We must not permit the disease of sin to sap our vitality and destroy the growth of yesterday. We must guard our spiritual health that we may grow. This is what Christ meant when he said: “Men ought always to pray.” The culture of the soul is an eternal process. Days must not pass; they must remain as part of our own selves.

III.
Beyond the Curtained Clouds

One of the rarest treasures of the May time is the richness and purity of the sky. The winter wraps the heavens in robes of somber hue as though in mourning for the summer dead; but at the coming of the first white cloud, and sound of first lark’s song, the sky seems to melt in tenderness, and assume the softest, richest hue of blue. As far as the eye can reach there is nothing but blue—soft, rich, warm, tender, melting, soul-entrancing blue. Blue, as clear as an unshadowed midland lake. Blue as a translucent sapphire without a flaw to disturb its gleaming surface. A great arch of caressing tenderness through which the white-flecked clouds ride in state, as they sail majestically from one port of mystery to another port of mystery. Among the richest treasures of the spring must be mentioned the deepening of the blue and the hanging of the snow-white curtains of the clouds.

But life’s horizon is ever draped with rich folds of white and blue, that hang like silken curtains, to hide, with tantalizing secrecy, the mysteries that lie beyond. Day by day the curtains hide their treasure-chests of mystery, tempting us to strike tents and journey toward them. With the eagerness with which little children watch the unwrapping of a Christmas package we watch the moving of these clouds, trusting that each new shifting of the curtains will make the coveted revelation, but as we journey on they still evade us.

Conservative people, ones who never startle themselves or their friends by doing anything new, not that they are averse to doing anything new but simply because they are not mentally capable of entertaining new ideas, say that the mysteries that lie behind the curtained clouds are childish fancies and youth’s illusions; and that energy expended in reaching the buried treasure at the rainbow’s end were as fruitful an enterprise. Those of us who have endeavored to solve these mysteries know better, for we have found that the curtained clouds that hide, are the ones that, like banners, guide us to the things we really need.

Man must not be unmindful of the ministry of mystery. Over against everything enigmatic God has given man an insatiable desire to find out the hidden meaning. Yielding to that divinely implanted impulse develops powers that otherwise would atrophy. Behold the benefits of these endeavors as they lifted the human race out of stagnation and taught it the way of progress. Tented in the low swamplands, eating roots and bark, man saw these curtains that suggested to his hunger-pinched body the thought of a banqueting-hall where he might feed. His quest never brought him to the ladened tables of his desire, but as he journeyed he found grain and fruits and nuts and berries, substantial food for a full twelvemonth. Dwelling amid the sick and dying, man saw the moving of the curtains that God hangs along our sky-line, and felt that, somewhere, beyond their folds, must exist a spring, whose living waters would not only heal the sick but give the drinker perpetual youth. The spring was never found, but as man journeyed westward in the quest he found a land whose liberties and institutions crowd a century of blessings into every decade. Toiling with small recompense, like some dull beast of burden, man saw the clouds that suggested a palace of ease and luxury. He failed to find the palace of his dreams, but on the way he discovered labor-saving machinery that has made his labor a delight, and given to every laborer a home surpassing in comforts the baron’s stately castle.

Because of the ministry of mystery he has been able to discover the depth and values of his own soul. In his effort to reach the curtained clouds man has had to rally his forces, and, to meet arising exigencies, he has been compelled to draw upon the resources of his nature, until he startled himself with his newly discovered possibilities and powers. He trained his body to wrestle against physical odds; he trained his mind to master the handicaps of ignorance; he found the glittering sword of courage with which to destroy defeating fear; he learned the value of faith and hope with which to enrich the soul when disaster would impoverish. Without the effort aroused by the cloudy curtains of mystery, he could not have found himself, and perfected his work of invention, art and letters.

The cloud curtains are also the temple curtains beyond which men are ever seeking God. As the pillared cloud led Israel victoriously through troubled waters and desert sands, so the mysteries of life and death, and the natural world in which we live, have led the human mind to religious contemplation. Man found himself entangled in the maze of sin, helplessly confused amid the ways that wound about, and crossed, and led to still more hopeless entanglements. Despair pointed to the narrow, tangled ways and said, “There is nothing better.” Looking upward, the distant clouds spoke of a larger world and greater freedom, and beckoned man to try again. By faith he was saved. To a thoughtful, reverent man, all nature reveals and conceals the One who brought it into existence. An awakened soul will never be satisfied until he finds God. He longs to see the Hand that parts the curtains and hurls the lightnings. He yearns to see the Face whose smile fills the sky with sunlight, and transfigures the cloudy curtains, until they become the portals of the heavenly temple. While mystery is not the mother of religion, it is, and ever has been, an important part of the Christian faith. “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing,” says King Solomon. He might have added, “It is the glory of man to search until he find it.”