Foggy Lowlands, Sunny Uplands

Anyone visiting Salem Chapel on Tuesday would have seen a remarkable sight. The valley over which our chapel looks was filled with fog, but the sky above was blue and the higher land perfectly visible. It gave the impression of being a large expanse of water or, even more imaginatively, being high up in the sky, peering down on the clouds below, as folk do when they jet off to sunnier climes.  

The explanation is a more mundane, with the phenomena being an example of radiation fog or valley fog which forms where cold dense air settles into the lower parts of a valley, condensing and forming a thick mist. It is usually the result of a temperature inversion, with warmer air passing above the valley. Valley fog is confined by local topography and can last for several days in calm conditions during the winter. Whatever the technical explanation, the view was more stunning than usual, with the Yorkshire Peaks still visible, but the lower fields and valleys be-clothed with linen.

The preceding Sunday morning, we had sung together Johnson Oatman’s 1898 hymn I’m Pressing on the Upward Way (also known as Higher Ground), which is an articulate and heartfelt plea for spiritual growth, one of its verses and chorus going:

Beyond the mist, I fain would rise,

To rest beneath unclouded skies,

Above earth's turmoil peace is found

By those who dwell on higher ground.

Lord, lift my up and let me stand,

By faith, on heaven's tableland;

Where love, and joy, and light abound,

Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

Just as Salem Chapel felt high in the sky that cold, Tuesday afternoon, so when we meet for worship as a people should we rise above the petty squabbles of earth, with its greasy politics, dirty money and grubby affairs. WE seek One higher and better, purer and nobler. The world will only drag you down, but Christ will only lift you up.

My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. Psalm 5:3