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MAN AT THE FRONTIER
the results are there to prove it. The boundaries that limited,
the contradictions that frustrated are no longer there; or rather,
they have become something other than they were. They have
a purpose and a meaning. The closed road in front, the closed
gate behind, the towering walls ou either side are seen to be
the place of waiting where power is.
We do not lift ourselves—we are lifted ; yet there is something
of personal activity in the inaction of despair and surrender.
We allow ourselves to be raised. We steer our boat to the
place where the sluice gates are. We are willing to continue the
journey when the higher reaches are attained. Nevertheless the
power comes to us. When the hidden gates are opened,
something from the realm of our aspirations reaches down to us and
lifts us up. Something of this order occurs whenever a person
is touched by the deep realities of experience.
That which gives man power to continue his journey beyond
the point where all his possibilities are exhausted is the grace to
believe—to believe that there is meaning in the situation
wherein he finds himself. This does not imply that he accepts
the inevitable, but that he believes in the mysterious powers
behind the occurrence. He does not invest the unknown with
his private significance but stands patiently before it until it
reveals its own meaning to him. The heart of reality may be
concealed from his sight, but he knows that it is a heart.
Irrespective of whether a psychological or a spiritual
standpoint be taken about the matter, it must be acknowledged that
men and women can reach a point where their own attitude
makes it impossible for supernatural powers to touch their inmost
being; and that this disposition can sometimes be changed
favourably for that power to work. Sometimes, as it seems, we
are fatally outside of that which lifts and bears, while at other
times we are within. It is the task of the spiritual counsellor—
and of the mental physician—to try to lead the individual to a
point from which he can get inside the sluice gates.
When we speak of the exceptional or extraordinary event in
human life, of that which has the character of miracle, we
think of occurrences that confirm what we have just tried to
describe. It would appear that sometimes, somehow, the law of
cause and effect is broken through and ceases to be valid. The
impossible happens. Not only some cases of physical healing,
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