In my View [2]

This morning I wake up from a troubling dream. In the dream I was walking in a large potato field in a flat sandy place near the sea somewhere along the coast where I grew up as a boy. There is an enormous tiger lying half asleep in the field. As I walk there, he wakes and walks beside me, showing signs of irritability and curiosity. I put my hand on his head and stroke him and talk to him as I would to a cat – ‘Good pussy! Be quiet now, pussy!’ But I do not like the way in which he tries to open his jaws.

At the edge of the field stand my wife and other relatives. They are not happy about my situation. They are close to the house of a Christian Scientist friend. I remain in the field with the tiger until I wake up. He is much taller than I am, and my feet sink above the ankles in the sandy soil. I would like the people at the edge of the field to help me to drive away the tiger.

It would be pointless to mention this dream if it had no relevance to the situation of other people. I think it has some relevance. It is the dream of a Puritan wrestling with the problem of ceasing to be a Puritan. And most of the people of liberal conscience whom I know have some such dilemma.

The tiger is perhaps the world of biological process, the world of sex and death, which I value for its energy but dread on account of its massive jaws. The refuge of Christian Science is to try to abolish one’s fear of it by claiming it is an illusion. In that sense most New Zealanders are Christian Scientists. I have made a different mistake. I have belittled its strength, calling a formidable tiger a pussy cat.

Nevertheless I am in the right place in that potato field. My life has always led me into places of danger. Without danger I can learn nothing. The potato field is somewhat bare and wintry. It has, however, a concealed fertility. There are tubers hidden under the sand. So the winter of asceticism can hide the seed of new action.

The answer to the tiger is not immediate action – the response equally of the Puritan and the Bohemian, though in opposite ways – but an inward response of contemplative understanding. There is no way to abolish the tiger of our thoughts. But we can learn to ride on the back of that tiger. We are eaten only by the tiger of our deeds.

One has to remember also the words of T.S. Eliot:

In the juvenescence of the year
Springs Christ the tiger. Us he devours . . .

page 605

Even the churches are not safe. Perhaps we should get rid of the idea of safety. It is an ignoble objective. I am glad the tiger of my dream was a large one. But you will understand why I have no difficulty in taking either Puritan or Bohemian by the hand and calling him brother.

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