Promises of Stars
Pius Mau Pialiug, a master-navigator, died on 12 July, aged 78.
Few, if any of us, will have heard his name. He was a Micronesian and in 1976 he sailed from Hawaii to Tahiti, 2500 miles in open sea. Without a compass, without any mechanical assistance for navigation. From the earliest age he was introduced by his grandfather into the means of navigating with all that nature had given us. His grandfather held his tiny body in tidal pools so he could learn how waves and wind blew differently from place to place. He soon learned other lessons. He could read how far he was from shore and its direction by the feel of the swell against the hull. He could detect shallower water by colour and see the light of invisible lagoons reflected in the undersides of clouds. Sweeter-tasting fish meant rivers were near and groups of birds homing in the evening showed him where land lay.
And he sailed 2500 miles using only this knowledge and the knowledge of the stars. He walked and sailed under an arching web of stars. He knew more than 100 by name: their colour, their light, their habits. He held this in his head and used them to navigate. He was recognised by his people as a navigator at the age of 18, and garlands were hung on his neck alongside turmeric. He knew the spirits of the ocean and the boats. He was the last one initiated for 39 years because of the ways things changed. And yet he continued to teach his skills to the next generation, allowing them to write them down though he was not allowed to do so when he was being taught.
Sailing by the stars alone. Teaching the stars to the next generations.
When Abram is led out of his tent by God in Genesis 15, he is promised descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. Unlikely. He is old and Sarah is barren. There have already been many threats to this promise of descendants and he must wonder. And God insists it will happen.
God insists over and over and over again. The lady doth protest too much.
But Abraham keeps the faith that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the skies. He keeps faith in the promises of God. He keeps faith even in trials and tribulations. He keeps faith and God, eventually, provides. And yet even in keeping the faith Abraham does not see the fulfillment of the promise. He does not see numerous descendants nor does he see a sign in the ground that says, ‘Sold: to Abraham’. He only sees the possibility that the promises of God will be fulfilled. He only sees that Isaac has been born and that there is hope of descendants through him.
And could Abraham have ever, ever seen the possibility of three world-wide faiths coming through him? Could he have ever seen that there would be so much offered to humandkind through these faiths and at the same time such strife between his children? Could Abraham have ever seen how his faith, ‘here I am Lord’, would be changed, altered, transformed? One wonders.
What is our faith? Faith, we are told by the writer of Hebrews, is the hope for things unseen. But Abraham eventually did see….just a bit. And what did God promise to us through Jesus, in whom we are called to have faith? Only that Jesus would be with us until the end of time. In our readings for this Sunday from the lectionary, we are provided a number of stories from Luke, chapter 12. The theme: be ready for God’s arrival, the coming of the Son of Man. Faith, in these stories, that God and Christ would arrive soon. The day of decision.
Many of us, it seems to me, live in a hope that our lives will make a difference. That all that we do in the sound and fury of our lives will make a difference. That there will be ripples of goodness and light and love that spread out from our lives and actions not only in our own timeframe but towards the generations to come. And in faith we have to hope, through God and Christ, that this is what will happen. We are never promised that our lives will be a walk in the garden, we are never promised that we will not encounter hurt on our travels. But we are promised that Christ will be with us; we are promised that, if we respond as Abraham, our descendants will be numerous. And we can count our descendants as those whose lives have changed because of our love and our light and our faith and our hope.
So many times people wonder aloud to me if there is a life after death. Many wonder if that’s the case but are convinced that, at the very least, their eternity lies in the ripples of their lives. We can only gain eternity in faith: either because we will be welcomed into God’s presence, or because the true eternity, the numerous descendants, occur when we live a life of giving, sacrifice, love and grace. That’s when the promises are fulfilled. We may never see all of those stars but we will definitely see the possibility of their fulfillment in the actions we set in place.
Mau Piailug sailed by the stars and an understanding of the spirits of the ocean. Abraham sailed, as it were, by the stars in the desert and the spirit of God. The stars were his faith: his present and his future. In our day and age, many travel by Tom-tom or GPS. Fewer by map. Virtually none by stars. And perhaps that is our loss. Stars remind us not of our human ingenuity but of our human vulnerability. Not of our wizardry but our mortality. Not of our manipulation of the world but of our fellowship of beauty in the created world.
By what stars do we sail?
By what star do you sail?
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