Sharks, Champagne, and Charity by Reverend Quiylbeit

This editorial previously published in the Collected Sermons of Rev. C. Noël Quiylbeit, St. Egbert's Church, Onchan Parish, Isle of Man. Though delivered May 25, 1997, the political content is thought relevant again. Just imagine that some of the names have been changed, but the politics remain the same.

Now, I realize many of you are going to disagree with some of the content of this sermon but, as I have no wish to rehash political arguments which are now moot by history and habit, let us find common ground in the thematic content, which relies only on the universal inclinations of man. I will try to get to that common ground as soon as I can, it being Mimosa Sunday. So, the basking sharks are here. I don't know how many of you have been on the trips to Port Erin sponsored throughout this summer by our local chapter of the Sea-Doggers. I see several out there who went last week when I did. I see now Brian, who especially had a good time [laughs] on which I won't elaborate here, the parish hall being by far the more appropriate locale.

Aquarian antics aside, the trip was truly revealing to me. Engagement with the world, revelry in its beauties and pains, personified in the scientific endeavour, allows us to discern the unseen messages for us which are woven into nature. We, the faithful, living spirits who are aliens here in the fleshly world, have an opportunity. We have the opportunity to recognize our fundamental alienness and in so doing observe the flesh and learn more about the spirit itself. Like tourists just off the ferry in Douglas, we can see things that those who dwell here in both mind and body do and can not: the mundane as awesome.

And last week, while a tourist in the world, I was given a glimpse of a spiritual truth that I had never thought possible from the biological world. Which is not to doubt that the wonder and awe which are deserving of God's creation are capable of revealing these truths, which I never did. It was instead that wonderful kind of discovery of a quality inherent in something which one never expected. And that something was the basking shark, Cetorhinus maximus, our beloved gobbag vooar, our very own sparrow of Capistrano, annually scouring the great waves on a pilgrimage to our cliffs and shores.