We Are Travelers                                                                  1/30/44

 

Scripture:  Psalm 121

 

The 121st Psalm has been called by some the “Traveler’s Psalm.”  It may have been chanted antiphonally by people as they went up to Jerusalem to the feasts.  The way was long and monotonous to foot travelers.  The sun was hot, the nights chilly, the roads dusty, the wilderness dangerous with robbers.  The chanting by people, who may have traveled in groups for sociability and safety, was one way of keeping up their spirit and relieving the monotony and apprehension of travel.

 

Once in a great while one hears an expression that went with life in former days when someone speaks of “Journeying mercies.”  I have heard it on the lips of one who prayed for “traveling mercies” upon those who were then en route to distant states.

 

The phrase “traveling mercies” had considerable meaning to those who moved about over some distances in an earlier day.  Dangerous mountain passes, trackless prairies, treacherous river crossings; extreme heat or cold; friendly or hostile people; all of these possibilities were real to the traveler.

 

I have always found ocean travel comfortable, at such times as I happened to be on the Pacific.  But when my grandparents crossed the Atlantic, the boat was small, the seas were rough, and there was discomfort and some danger in the crossing.  Earlier still, the sailors and passengers alike knew well the common risks of seafaring.  Violent storm or appalling calm were alike dreaded in the days of the sailing vessels.  To men and women who embarked on a voyage in those earlier times, the heartfelt wishes for safety and the hope for “traveling mercies” expressed by friends were a very real expression.  And the 121st Psalm was a comforting inspiration to many a traveler -- “The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and for evermore.”

 

The expression “traveling mercies” is apt to sound quaint in the ears of many of us in the day of modern travel.  Two or three years ago, there was no particular seriousness nor sense of anxiety about travel.  Journeying was often a rest and relaxation.  When seeing a friend off for the Twin Cities or to Chicago, or across country to the coast on the streamliner, it hardly seemed in place to wish the traveler “journeying mercies.”  The trip in prospect would be made in safety.  One could eat excellent food, see fine scenery, ride in comfort in air conditioned coaches, usually sleep luxuriously in a fine Pullman berth.  The one who stayed behind might have less comfort than the one who traveled!  The traveler might be sent off with a box of chocolates or a book and a light-hearted “bon voyage” or “happy landings.”

 

Within the last two years the scene has changed again.  And the quaint old phrase might have meaning again for our modern world.  People are on the move.  And we are far more concerned for them than just that they may be fortunate enough to find a seat on a crowded train.  Peoples of the world are on the move, not for pleasure, but of necessity.  Not for fun, but because they must travel.  We are told that in our nation alone, a fifth of the population has moved during these war years.  For the entire population of the world, the figures would run into those astronomical terms in which we are accustomed to speak today (whether we know what the figures mean or not.)

 

Ten years ago thousands of political refugees were on the move in Europe.  During the decade since at least a million Chinese carried their civilization from their overrun eastern cities to the caves and comparative safety of the western hills.  Hundreds of thousands of women and children from Spain fled across the Pyrenees in January of 1939.  Since general warfare broke out in Europe, that unhappy continent has lost count of its refugees.  Millions are moved about for forced labor.  Thousands try to flee danger, or are crowded into mixed trains and taken like cattle to slaughter or worse.  Countless numbers of people roam the world in abject need of “traveling mercies.”

 

In our own land vast companies of travelers have turned into the nation’s highways and onto its railways and yes into its skyways.  Workers migrate by the hundreds of thousands to mushroomed cities around war industries.  Areas of new opportunity are being peopled by job-hungry people.  Physically, they have not fared badly.  They come in busses, on trains, in their cars.  Though crowded or restricted, they travel in comparative safety.

 

But their movement involves other hazards, dangers to their personality, threats to their spirit.  The stability of home, of familiar surroundings, of long established communities is left behind.  In new surroundings different sympathies and prejudices have opportunity to flare up suddenly into violence.  In the midst of trailer camps, crowded rooms, swing shifts, and the pressing compulsion of warfare it is difficult to maintain personal stability.  Bodily journeying may be safe enough.  But the trip is not “safe” for the soul.

 

And of course another great group of the world’s people who are constantly on the move are the men and women in the armed services of the several nations.  Their travel, in general, holds more of physical hazard.  But even among them, the critical aspect of their travel is spiritual rather than physical.  The soldier and the sailor is confronted by issues that never would have arisen at home.  He faces issues like these:  “What is there to hold my life steady and strong now that I am away from the influence of my home and community?”  “What does killing mean?”  “What is death?”  Since I am willing to risk my life for society, what does society owe me in the future?”  Hardly can the man or woman leave (or reach) the induction center before such issues arise.

 

In a spiritual sense, even those left at home to carry on the so-called normal routine of work and other community life have left familiar haunts.  All of us, by the circumstance of the times, have been forced to venture on journeys of the soul; on trips we would not have chosen to make.  The young man who is not sent to war is left without the companionship of his fellows who do go.  And he feels faced with uncomfortable queries as to his own condition.  Parents whose children have gone find themselves journeying in loneliness.  Young wives whose husbands are abroad face loneliness and anxiety.  Society scarcely takes time to worry over personal problems, whatever they may be.

 

War has suddenly put us all in the category of travelers, whose spirits are willingly or unwillingly on the move.  And countless numbers of us, and our fellow travelers, stand in need of mercies.

 

And we are reminded that warfare is not the only cause for dangerous travel.  Severe illness, injury to a loved one, visitations of pain, a crippling of life, perhaps a slow decline of one’s powers, possible financial reverses, days of personal frustration, waning of friendships, death of loved ones - any one of these may force us out to search our way alone in lands as yet unknown to us.  The hymn writer, speaking of “pilgrims through this weary land,” knew the need of a spiritual traveler’s soul for mercies.

 

Now what may be the mercies?  Well, for one thing, we are not alone in our travel.  And we stand in dual relationship to our travels.  We are travelers, and we are observers of the travels of others.  We see the need of others and have a chance to lend a hand in mutual aid and encouragement.  The opportunity to help is always a mercy.  Many of us are ill-equipped for these voyages.  In pleasant times we have sometimes been callous enough to brush aside any profound attempt to grapple with the problems of death, of pain, of sorrow, of loneliness, as “borrowing trouble.”  But no one need borrow trouble now.  Life’s testings are now forced upon us by circumstances which have broken through our circle of easy living.  Life, which has been treated so lightly, now asks to be taken seriously.  Any sense of earnestness we may be able to offer those who are groping, is a mercy.

 

One of the first mercies that comes to hand is the remembrance that others have pioneered in travel and that we have their experience.  We are not the first generation of folk who have been forced into dangerous travel.  We can gain much help from the records of those who have traveled successfully in the past.  Many of their journeys have been well remembered in the Bible, and there they stand for ready reference.  They are recorded in great variety.  Abraham went on a pioneer’s trail to a new land.  Joseph went as a slave, captive and bound, to the land of Egypt.  The Prodigal Son went to a far country geographically - to an even farther country spiritually. 

 

[Here I seem to be missing Page 10 of the handwritten ms.]

 

It is always easier to cross the mountains or the desert if you can get hold of a map left by someone who has crossed over before.  There are such maps if we will take the time to study them.

 

There is another mercy in the cloud of faithful witnesses.  It has not diminished.  When I was a child and a youth I thought of the day of martyrs as belonging to the pages of past history.  Perhaps you did too.  And now the turn of another page brings to light more of the blood of martyrs on it than ever before!  Men and women of the faith are dying for the faith!  Ted Hume, shot from the skies while on the wings of mercy; Martin Niemoller languishing in prison; Korean pastors snatched from their pulpits, imprisoned and tortured.  Priests and pastors and rabbis of Europe shot for their very vocation.  Christians and Jews by the hundreds and thousands endure persecution, brave danger, endure ridicule and ostracism for their faith.

 

Probably 30 million American people gather today in temples of worship and in this one day lift up their hearts to God.  Others will join on another day.  Christians in conquered lands, and in enemy lands likewise look to God in supplication.  Do you remember that there are those brothers in the faith in Germany, in Italy, in Japan, too?  (There is power and healing in the remembrance of fellowship.)

 

Do you want to know the mercies of the traveler?  Even though you go out not knowing whither you go, go with sincerity.  Go in that kind of humility that can be taught of God’s processes.  This is important.

 

A young man of Tarsus 2,000 years ago was sincere in his belief in the efficacy of law to hold society together.  But because he could learn, God was able to show him that good will is more powerful for a better world than legalism.  And the strong Saul became the mightier Paul!

 

Great unguessed values shall all of our moving workers, our soldiers and sailors, our selves, bring home at the end of our traveling if we travel in search of those values that shall surely appear when life is treated reverently.

 

For all those who will receive the traveler’s mercies, the journey of the soul is part of every man’s discovery of God.

 

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, January 30, 1944.