Iz’ik and I often discussed the areas of faith and life where our religions diverged. Among these was the Trinity, and I hope that my youthful explanation led my teacher to understand that Christianity is monotheistic, and not polytheistic as many Muslims believe. I argued as strongly as I could for the relevance of Jesus Christ and the determining significance of Him for faith. As I saw it then – and still do – one can have a high regard for Jesus (as Muslims undoubtedly do), yet fail to see that unless He is central to the faith, that faith is inadequate without Him. Some thinkers have termed this the ‘scandal’ of Christianity, and the reason it can be seen as uncompromising and exclusive.
Perhaps above all I was led to appreciate the spirituality of Islam, and its devotion to prayer and the disciplined life. Although, as a young evangelical, I was perhaps over-eager to convince Iz’ik of the truth of Christianity, he would give as good as he got, and we both enjoyed our weekly discussions. Later in life those times would help me to treat Islam not as a faith hostile to Christianity, but as a religion with many virtues and many similarities to our own. Sadly, when I left Shaibah I left the study of Arabic behind me as well. In 1956 I did not consider it remotely possible that I would ever find the language useful in the days to come. How wrong I was.
The months passed quickly because there was so much to do. As the Wireless Operator of an air-ground rescue crew, I enjoyed several weekends on practices in the wonderful Iraqi marshes, which in recent years Saddam Hussein has so destructively drained. In the 1950s it was a fertile area for wildlife and fishing, and if the truth be known, the air-ground rescue practices were in fact an opportunity for the CO to indulge his love of shooting game. Besides being the wireless link with the base, my other job was to pluck and skin the beautiful pheasants he shot. Ironically, on one of these weekends an aircraft actually did crash in Kuwait, and an ad hoc rescue team had to be formed to do what we were supposedly training to do.
Because the desert ground was so hard, and the heat so debilitating, free time was passed in less strenuous activities, and the open-air swimming pool was our daily centre when off-duty. I was keen on other sports too, and accompanied a friend who was a dedicated runner in punishing laps of the perimeter of the airfield. The daily routine of work and sport allowed time for Christian fellowship as well. Of the 120 men on the base, there was a small but healthy number of practising Christians of all denominations and traditions. There was no Chaplain, so we had to create our own worship, which usually took the form of Bible study with hymns and prayers.
Towards the end of my time at Shaibah I found an old building left open for spring cleaning. Shaibah had been a huge base during the Second World War, and most of the former camp was now closed up. To my surprise I found myself in a well-kept Anglican chapel. I immediately conferred with some of my friends, and we agreed that it would be good to keep it open – that is, if the CO agreed. He did, but for a limited time only. So for several weeks we held services according to the Book of Common Prayer rite and I celebrated holy communion – quite illegally, of course. I don’t suppose for one moment that the Almighty was bothered that in the absence of a priest a group of young men took it in turns to use the words of the 1662 Prayer Book and to celebrate communion.
Once a week a flight from RAF Habbaniyah would bring us one of the latest films being shown in the UK, and we would gather in the open air to watch them. I well remember one which suggested to me the residual hostility some people felt towards the Church of England. The title I cannot remember, but one of the characters, a vicar, was a detestable man out to con an old woman of her wealth. When he was shown putting on his dog collar, jeers and whistles of disgust drowned out the soundtrack. The moment seemed to show that young people felt alienated from the life of the Church. That of course had not been so in my case, but I had to remember that not everyone had had good experiences of clergymen.
There was a darker side to service life which brought home to me the value of a faith, with its framework of moral values. Several times a week men would visit the brothels of Basra, and sometimes they returned with the unexpected fruits of pleasure – in the form of gonorrhoea, syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases. This meant that we had to endure horrific educational films on the dangers of these diseases, which certainly disturbed many of us, but did not seem to dampen the ardour of others. I did not see it as my job to reprove them, although I would certainly put my view forward. Neither was I immune from the temptation that led them to succumb, but I suppose I felt that my faith expected me to honour women, and not to treat them as mere objects of sexual gratification.
As time drew close to my demob, the next stage on my journey increasingly occupied my mind and prayers. One evening when I was on a late shift, the silence of the desert called me to reflect deeply on the future. When the shift ended I signed the usual summary of work, then waited outside for the car that would bring out my replacement and take me back to the camp. I could not but marvel at the beauty and brilliance of the night sky from the darkness of the desert in which I stood. Thousands of stars illuminated the heavens, and seemed within an arm’s length of me. As I drank in the awesome scene, I was overcome by the finiteness and smallness of man when measured against the age of the universe. And yet, that did not intimidate me. Later Gerard Manley Hopkins’s great poem ‘The World is Charged with the Grandeur of God’ would become one of my favourites, and would capture for me the feeling of awe I felt then.
It has sometimes puzzled me that the size of the universe has led thinking people into agnosticism. Some have said to me, ‘How can you possibly believe in a personal deity when our planet is a third-rate planet in a tenth-rate galaxy in one of countless solar systems?’ I would usually reply that this was making too good a case for the earth, but that size has little to do with it. If the Almighty is so awesome that He has created as many galaxies as there are grains of sand in a million deserts, that same awesome God may still love us and be our heavenly Father. Pascal’s cry, ‘The silence of eternal space terrifies me,’ did not stop him trusting in the maker of all things.
It was those evenings in the southern Iraqi desert, under the velvety blanket lit by the brilliance of thousands of stars, that led me to take an interest in cosmology and the mystery of creation. I have not read anything since that has caused me to falter in my conviction that a personal faith in a loving God is not irrational or incredible. But it is not faith that drives people to serve God and others, so much as love. I was convinced of the love of God for all, and that was the element that energised my response perhaps more than any other.
But that moment beneath the stars also crystallised a question that had been on my mind for months: what was I going to make of my life on my return to England in a few weeks? Teaching was an admirable profession. Social work too attracted me. But the tug at my heart was definitely the ordained ministry, and in prayer I tried to put into words my deep desire to serve God and humankind with all my heart.
I had no qualifications to speak of, just an overwhelming longing to make something of my life with all the energy and ability I had been given. Yet even with the optimism and self-confidence one has at that age, I was conscious of the huge challenge ahead of me. But under that wonderful night sky the thought began to enter my head that ordination might not be beyond me. I might lack academic qualifications, but I did not lack ability or a great desire to do something useful with my life. I was still young enough to learn. I could only do my very best, and rely on God’s grace.
‘Don’t trouble because you think you are not fit. Of course you are not fit. The greatest saint is not fit for the service of God: but there is a wise saying that God does not choose what is fit but he fits what he chooses … the sense of unfitness is one of the signs of vocation.’
The Spiritual Letters of Father Hughson (1953)
AT THE END OF JANUARY 1956 I was demobbed,