The Growth of the Chambered Nautilus

 

This is the ship of pearl which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main, -

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings

In gulfs enchanted, where Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

 

In webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,

As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed, -

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

 

Year after year beheld silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

 

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathѐd horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings: -

 

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

The Chambered Nautilus, Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

I recently acquired a book of poems at a birthday party….and it wasn’t even my birthday! 😊  My friend hosted a group of women who each brought a gift that they considered to be one of their “favorite things”.  Then we played a game similar to a white elephant gift exchange, and after some rounds of opening gifts and stealing, I went home with a book of poems. 

 

Admittedly, I don’t read a lot of poetry.  But I know that often stories and poems have a way of putting truth into witty and memorable prose.  The song, “To All the Poets I Have Known” encapsulates that thought so well.

 

So, when I read The Chambered Nautilus last weekend, it was just what my soul needed to be reminded of.  As the poem describes, a nautilus is a marine invertebrate with a remarkable shell.  Every 150 days or so, it adds a new, larger chamber and moves into it.  It uses the past chambers as floatation devices – filling them with the right amount of air to suspend themselves at whatever level of the oceanic column they desire.  They are able to balance weight and buoyancy as they grow.  This beautiful shell is a testament to a creature that is always moving forward, always growing, and uniquely able to use the past to rise above.

 

Oliver Wendell Holmes’ line, “Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,” struck me.

Like the nautilus, what does it look like to keep moving forward - regardless of the joys or sorrows of the past?  What does it look like to increase in soul size…and each year have a bigger perspective?

 

I believe that type of growth can only happen when we look outside our circumstances or emotions and choose to dwell on a larger, eternal vision.  When we choose to focus on eternal life.

 

Those who follow Jesus are promised eternal life (John 3:16).  But eternal life is not something that starts after we die.  In John 17:3, we are told what eternal life is:

“And this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, 

and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

 

Eternal life is to know God!  And the more I know God, the more I will grow.

 

Just 2 nights ago, I was driving in my car and heard a radio host talking.  Her musings threw me into a deep dive into Scripture as soon as I arrived home.  She mentioned a concept I never thought about before.  Here’s what I learned:

 

1.        No one can see the face of God and live.

a.        Exodus 33:20 “‘But’, he said, ‘you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.’”

b.       Earlier in the chapter, we see that Moses spoke with the Lord “face to face, as a man speaks with his friend” (v.11), so clearly you can interact with God.  But the above verse seems to imply that you cannot see God in his fullness and glory or you will die. 

c.        Someday, after death, we will see God’s face (Revelation 22:4).

2.        We are told to continually seek His face.

a.        2 Chronicles 7:14 tells people to humble themselves, pray and seek God’s face.

b.       Psalm 105:4 “See the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually!”

c.        Psalm 24 says that those who have clean hands and a pure heart can stand in God’s holy place, and “such is the generation of those who seek Him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob” (verse 5).

d.       Psalm 27:8-9 says, “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’  My heart says to you, ‘Your face, LORD, do I seek.’”

Why are we told that we could die by seeing God in his fullness and yet also told to seek His face?  Are these two things contradictory?

Nope.

The Christian life is all about taking up our cross and dying.

When we see God for who He really is, we die to ourselves.  We become who we were meant to be:  bigger in soul and more enamored with and focused on Jesus.

If we want to be like a nautilus, continually moving forward and growing in size, then we need to focus on staring at the face of Jesus.  Eternal life is knowing God…not focusing on or being overrun by our own circumstances…whether they be pleasant or unpleasant.

These ideas have been such an encouragement to me in the past few days, and I pray that they encourage you as well.  Each day, may we focus on Jesus and gain a bigger vision so we may, like the nautilus, build more stately mansions for our soul.  Eternal life of knowing God can start now! 

And one day we will leave our “shells” behind and experience I John 3:2: 

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”