James T. Cleland - "Sermon for Thanksgiving" (November 20, 1966)

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-	[Francis Of Assisi] We thank thee that thy presence	0:04
	shall accompany these gifts to their intended ends.	0:06
	And may all resound to thy glory	0:10
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	0:13
	Amen.	0:15
	(gentle music)	0:17
-	[Dean Of the Chapel Clelin] Let us pray.	0:49
	Let the words of my mouth	0:52
	and the meditations of our hearts	0:55
	be acceptable in thy sight.	0:57
	Oh Lord our strength and our redeemer.	1:01
	Amen.	1:05
	One of the more surprising aspects of the job	1:16
	of the Dean of the Chapel,	1:20
	is the unexpected requests made upon him	1:23
	to perform peculiar tasks.	1:27
	Peculiar in the sense of distinctive,	1:31
	sometimes quaint, even outlandish.	1:35
	This afternoon, a group of the local gentry	1:41
	want me to bless the hones and or the horses	1:45
	of the fox hunting set.	1:50
	By good luck or by predestination, I cannot.	1:53
	(congregation laughs)	1:57
	It's just as well,	2:00
	because all I know about fox hunting	2:01
	is Oscar Wilde's definition of it.	2:04
	Fox hunting is the pursuit of the uneatable	2:07
	by the unspeakable.	2:11
	(congregation laughs)	2:13
	Yet, that is unfair to my mounted friends on two counts.	2:15
	They are not unspeakable.	2:21
	They are good folk.	2:23
	More over they do not hunt a fox,	2:26
	but a fox's tail or brush,	2:30
	presumably drawn by a Jeep.	2:33
	It must be interesting to see a Jeep	2:36
	clear a fence,	2:38
	(congregation laughs)
	or a water hazard.	2:40
	I must go to the hunt some day.	2:42
	However, one request brought an unexpected dividend.	2:45
	I made the address at the Derm Debutante Ball	2:51
	about three years ago, a bunny affair.	2:55
	(congregation laughs)	3:00
	It was.	3:01
	And I was recompensed with a superb volume	3:03
	of the Sierra Club entitled,	3:07
	Time and the River Flowing: Grand Canyon.	3:09
	Photography is breathtaking.	3:16
	All in unbelievable color, rich and real.	3:19
	It is a treasure.	3:25
	A book I shall always keep.	3:27
	I read it, but recently,	3:31
	and it reminded me of a two brief visit	3:33
	spent at Grand Canyon back in 1951.	3:37
	Now, that volume and three stories about the canyon,	3:42
	were the primers for this sermon.	3:48
	This sermon for our Thanksgiving service.	3:52
	There's surely no need	3:58
	for me to describe Grand Canyon to you.	3:59
	For one thing, I cannot.	4:04
	I do not possess the words to turn your ears into eyes	4:08
	so that you may see this wonder of the natural world.	4:15
	Let me quote the first three short paragraphs of the forward	4:20
	to the Sierra Club's masterpiece.	4:26
	Time. 2 billion years of it	4:31
	laid down the stone of the plateau province.	4:36
	Within that plateau would be some of the most colorful	4:41
	and dramatic natural sculpture man ever saw.	4:45
	Time and the River Flowing.	4:52
	The Colorado River through the millenniums,	4:56
	curve deep, created the Great Canyon	5:00
	and is still shaping it.	5:06
	Standing on it's rim in 19 three,	5:09
	Theodore Roosevelt said,	5:12
	"In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder,	5:15
	which so far as I know, is in kind, absolutely unparalleled.	5:20
	Leave it as it is.	5:29
	You cannot improve on it.	5:32
	The ages have been at work on it,	5:35
	and man can only merit."	5:39
	Some of us here this morning would say an earnest	5:44
	Amen to that.	5:47
	However, let us look at the three stories about the canyon	5:49
	as indicative of three different approaches to nature.	5:54
	To the created world,	5:59
	which is our earthly dwelling place.	6:02
	The first story is told of a female teenager from Brooklyn,	6:07
	whose parents compelled her against her will	6:13
	to take an auto trip with them to California.	6:17
	She would rather have stayed with her boyfriend in Flatbush.	6:22
	He received a postcard of the canyon from her	6:29
	with a one sentence message.	6:34
	"I have just spat a mile.	6:37
	I have just spat a mile."	6:47
	A single spittle was her feeling response to greatness	6:52
	on a mama scale.	6:57
	She spat once.	7:00
	The reaction of ignorance, or obtuseness or indignation.	7:03
	Hers was the feminine counterpart	7:10
	of the famous masculine musical comedy line.	7:12
	"What ain't we got, we ain't we got days."	7:17
	Now, don't be too chagrined or provoked.	7:23
	There are people who have no use for the country.	7:28
	No pleasure in it.	7:32
	I asked a distinguished Arabian scholar	7:35
	where he was going to live after his retirement.	7:38
	He looked at me in a puzzled kind of way and answered,	7:42
	"There is only one place to live, New York city."	7:47
	That's where he is.	7:55
	Moreover, there are some rural folk	7:58
	who find no delight,	8:00
	no soul satisfaction in the country.	8:01
	Do you remember Wordsworth's, Peter Bell.	8:05
	He roved among the vales and streams	8:10
	in the Greenwood and hollow Dale.	8:13
	They were his dwellings night and day,	8:17
	but nature nare could find the way	8:21
	into the heart of Peter Bell.	8:23
	In vein through every changeful year,	8:27
	did nature lead him as before.	8:29
	A primrose by a river's brim.	8:33
	A yellow primrose was to him.	8:37
	And it was nothing more.	8:41
	I'm willing to wager that Peter Bell	8:45
	didn't even know the word primrose.	8:48
	Now, those of you who know me well,	8:53
	are regarding me a little quizzically,	8:55
	even disdainfully and muttering,	8:59
	"Who is Clelin to despise that Brooklyn teenager	9:02
	and Peter Bell,	9:06
	touche.	9:10
	I haven't been in the duke forest	9:13
	in the 21 years I have spent on this faculty.	9:16
	I seldom meander through the duke gardens.	9:22
	I have never planted a flower.	9:27
	And I don't mean to.	9:30
	The garden clubs of North Carolina have no use for me	9:33
	to understate the matter gently.	9:39
	(congregation laughs)	9:41
	I hate picnics.	9:44
	(congregation laughs)
	Sitting in a dump field	9:48
	and getting a chill in the back end of the summer.	9:50
	(congregation laughs)	9:53
	or ants in one's pants.	9:54
	But I love to look at nature through a window.	9:59
	It's a preferable prospect to tenements,	10:04
	office buildings and factories as a daily view.	10:07
	I would go back to Grand Canyon tomorrow,	10:13
	but I wouldn't live there.	10:17
	And yet I'm glad it is there.	10:19
	It did something to me.	10:23
	I understand the Flatbush lessee and Peter Bell,	10:25
	though I cannot agree with them.	10:30
	I wish I were more of a nature lover.	10:33
	Sometimes.	10:37
	The second story is about a father	10:42
	and his five-year-old daughter	10:45
	who approached the south rim of the canyon	10:48
	and stood near the edge in raptured silence for two minutes.	10:51
	Then the girl pulled her father's hand,	10:58
	looked up at him and said,	11:03
	"Daddy, what happened?	11:06
	Daddy, what happened?"	11:13
	This childish query is the scientist's question.	11:18
	Man in pursuit of truth.	11:25
	What is Grand Canyon to a scientist?	11:30
	It is a stupendous drainage ditch	11:34
	curved by time and a river flowing.	11:39
	It is an outdoor laboratory for the geologists	11:45
	and the botanist and the zoologists.	11:48
	It is the raw material of possible new theories,	11:52
	the testing ground of hypothesis,	11:57
	the arena of arguments and inferences.	12:01
	It is the place of discovery	12:06
	with the scientific findings backed by solid evidence.	12:09
	What happened? Is the question behind the rise	12:17
	and the dominance of science.	12:21
	With perseverance and consistency,	12:25
	through endless days and sleepless nights.	12:29
	With courage to discard	12:33
	and patience to test its conclusions.	12:36
	It remains loyal to its view of truth.	12:40
	Conformity to the discovered, tested facts	12:44
	with the readiness to restate the truth	12:51
	when new unexpected facts are discovered.	12:55
	The scientist has been possessed by a high standard,	13:01
	a laudable desire, and a worthy vocation.	13:06
	This attitude came to life for me some 40 years ago	13:15
	in the person of my oldest friend.	13:20
	He had just collected three degrees from Glasgow University	13:24
	in seven and a half years,	13:29
	in arts, science and medicine.	13:31
	He had been awarded a research fellowship to discover	13:37
	a chemical cure for cancer.	13:40
	I told him that such a find	13:45
	would be a boon and a blessing to men.	13:47
	He answered, "Oh, damn man.	13:51
	I want to find the truth about something	13:57
	which has licked all our searching so far."	14:02
	He's still at it.	14:07
	It's a praiseworthy enterprise.	14:10
	If he succeeds mankind will benefit.	14:13
	But for him, that will be a byproduct.	14:16
	Though he will be glad about it.	14:21
	For him, nature is a store house of secrets,	14:24
	which yields its goods to the consecrated mind	14:31
	and the unyielding will.	14:36
	I stand with my hat off,	14:39
	when I watch a trained scientist,	14:42
	ask nature with an intensive sincerity,	14:45
	what happened.	14:50
	The third story from Grand Canyon	14:55
	is a single sentence description of the impact of the canyon	14:57
	upon a cowboy.	15:03
	God dug it in His anger	15:07
	and painted it in His joy.	15:11
	God dug it in His anger and painted it in His joy.	15:16
	He dug it in His anger 217 miles along,	15:22
	one mile down from the south rim,	15:28
	10 miles across from the south to the north rim	15:33
	with a tumultuous tarn at the foot.	15:37
	And it took him from seven to nine million years.	15:41
	No wonder he was angry.	15:46
	But he painted it in his joy.	15:54
	The silent colors overwhelm the beholder.	15:58
	To some they are unrefined, immodest, glaring,	16:02
	too much of a muchness.	16:08
	To others they are expressive, change full	16:11
	and capacious of unexpected effects,	16:15
	thrilling beyond imagination.	16:18
	The anger and the joy were both wholesale,	16:21
	immeasurable, titanic.	16:25
	Grand Canyon is no colored Camille	16:29
	or should I say intaglio.	16:34
	Now, what have we in this semi poetic description	16:38
	of the cowboys?	16:41
	It is the complex emotion of wonder.	16:44
	Amazement and adoration.	16:49
	Bewilderment and admiration.	16:54
	It is rapturous awe.	16:59
	The feeling that comes over a person	17:03
	when earth touches heaven	17:06
	and the things of time and space are penetrated by eternity.	17:10
	It is the uncomprehended faith	17:16
	that behind and above and within nature is nature's God.	17:20
	So Moses picks the shoes from off his feet	17:30
	and the Psalmist writes,	17:35
	"Praise God from earth below ye dragons and ye deeps,	17:38
	fire, hail, clouds, wind and snow whom in command He keeps.	17:43
	Praise ye His name hills, great and small,	17:49
	trees, low and tall, beasts, wild and tame."	17:53
	And Jesus talks about the lilies and the rain	18:00
	and the sun and spatters	18:04
	and always with a divine reference.	18:07
	And Francis of Assisi as we sang and as we heard,	18:12
	gives thanks for our brother the sun	18:16
	and our sister, the moon	18:19
	and our mother, the earth.	18:22
	And words with rights about what nature meant to him	18:25
	as he grew older.	18:28
	I have felt a presence	18:31
	that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts.	18:34
	A sense sublime of something far more deeply inter fused,	18:39
	whose dwelling is the light of setting suns	18:45
	and the round ocean	18:49
	and the living air	18:51
	and the blue sky,	18:54
	and in the mind of man.	18:57
	If we suggested two words with,	19:02
	that he was out of his mind,	19:04
	not very 20th century, he would whip round and ask,	19:07
	"Good God, I'd rather be a pagan	19:11
	circled in a creed out warren.	19:15
	So might I standing on this pleasantly of glimpses	19:19
	that would make me less forlorn of sight of proteus	19:24
	rising from the sea	19:29
	or hear old triton, blow his reeded horn."	19:31
	For all these people, the God of nature	19:37
	is of basic importance.	19:41
	Now, that's something for us to remember	19:44
	at this season of Thanksgiving,	19:46
	because one of the primary emphasis	19:49
	of any Thanksgiving service,	19:53
	is that God, the creator and preserver,	19:55
	the God of nature is prior	20:01
	to God, the redeemer.	20:07
	God, the creator and preserver,	20:11
	is prior, to God, the redeemer.	20:14
	Now, this is not to ignore redemption.	20:18
	The next four Sundays are in advent,	20:23
	directing us to Christmas	20:26
	and to the 12 days leading to epiphany.	20:29
	Then, we shall give thanks for Jesus.	20:33
	The word become flesh and dwelling among us	20:36
	for our benefit.	20:39
	But, today and this coming Thursday,	20:41
	our gratitude is to the God of nature,	20:46
	especially, the God of the harvest.	20:49
	For once again, the sowing and reaping have not failed.	20:52
	It is our wondering duty and grand privilege,	20:59
	to acknowledge that God.	21:03
	The creator and sustainer,	21:05
	the source of these good gifts,	21:08
	such knowledge and acknowledgement are almost	21:12
	too wonderful for us.	21:15
	Marvelous, is His revelation in creation.	21:18
	Praise be to God.	21:20
	My brethren,	21:29
	which of these three positions is ours?	21:32
	The ignorant or blazay?	21:38
	I have spat a mile.	21:42
	The asking for truthful answers to scientific questions.	21:47
	What happened?	21:54
	The heart full wonder of the religious affirmation.	21:58
	God dug it in His anger and painted it in His joy.	22:02
	I could wish in this university,	22:09
	which has Eruditio et Religio, as its motto.	22:12
	That it would be a combination of the second	22:19
	and third attitudes held together,	22:21
	even intention.	22:27
	Lauren Isley, professor of science	22:31
	and professor of philosophy	22:36
	at the University of Pennsylvania,	22:39
	suggests this in a story which he hopes is true.	22:42
	Here it is, from that book,	22:46
	which the debutantes gave to me.	22:49
	One of our great atomic physicists,	22:54
	one of the chief architects of the atomic bomb,	22:58
	was out wandering in the woods one day with a friend	23:02
	when he came upon a small tortoise.	23:06
	He took it up and started home,	23:10
	thinking to surprise his children with it.	23:13
	After a few steps,	23:18
	he paused and surveyed the tortoise doubtfully.	23:20
	"What's the matter?", asked his friend.	23:26
	Without responding, the great scientist	23:31
	slowly retraced his steps as precisely as possible	23:34
	and gently set the turtle down upon the exact spot	23:40
	from which he had taken it up.	23:44
	Then, he turns solemnly to his friend.	23:49
	Now, remember, he was one of the chief architects	23:54
	over the atomic bomb.	23:58
	"It just struck me," he said,	24:03
	"That perhaps for one man,	24:06
	I had tampered enough with the universe."	24:10
	He turned and left the turtle to wander on its way.	24:17
	And Lauren Isley adds,	24:24
	"The man who made that remark,	24:27
	was one of the best of the modern men.	24:29
	I have tampered enough." he said.	24:36
	It was not a denial of science.	24:39
	It was a final recognition that science is not enough	24:43
	for man,	24:49
	only when man has recognized this fact,	24:51
	will science become what it was for beacon.	24:55
	Something to speak of as touching upon hope.	24:59
	Only then, will man be truly human.	25:07
	Is that why we have a chapel	25:19
	as well as laboratories	25:25
	in this university?	25:28
	Let us pray.	25:36
	Oh most restable Father	25:44
	who has blessed the labors of the husbandman	25:46
	in the returns of the fruits of the earth.	25:49
	We give the humble and hearty thanks,	25:52
	for this thy bounty,	25:54
	beseeching thee to continue thy loving kindness to us.	25:57
	That our land may still yield her increase,	26:02
	to thy glory and our comfort.	26:06
	And thine shall be the praise	26:09
	from generation to generation.	26:11
	And may the blessing of God come upon you abundantly.	26:15
	May it keep you strong and tranquil,	26:20
	in the truth of his promises	26:24
	through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	26:27
	(gentle music)	26:35

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "Sermon for Thanksgiving" (November 20, 1966)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4222w701

Date:

November 20, 1966

Speaker:

Cleland, James T. (James Tough), 1903-1974

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0362
ref5927_v7r
uachapelsermaud
duke:628048
dcrau002358
ark:/87924/r4222w701
cf0937f6-9743-4af7-81df-4386a928760e

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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English

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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James T. Cleland - "Sermon for Thanksgiving" (November 20, 1966)

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