Buoyancy Ahoy

Buoyancy. It is a word I associate with the old Sea Chanties we used to sing in junior high school back in the early 1920s in California.

I was about 11 years old. I am now 93 and can still sing the words:

“Bells of the sea! Are you ringing for me?

Ringing and singing that old melody?

Somewhere tonight on the rolling foam

Someone is longing for sweetheart at home.”

“Buoyancy” was the word the fishermen used to describe singing their joy as they headed for the beach, the buoys and home with the evening catch. Now let the years pass to 1961. I am editor of Billy Graham’s magazine Decision and am flying home from Singapore where I spoke at a pioneering international conference of Christian evangelists, the fruit of Billy Graham’s great world gathering of leaders in the Gospel from all over the globe. I was sitting alone in the plane when a young soul-winning minister from Hungary asked if he could occupy the plane seat next to me. “I know who you are,” he said. “I was in Singapore also, and I have something to share with you.”

I made room and invited him to be seated. “You know the word ‘buoyancy?’” he began. I gave a nod and his face lit up. “Buoyancy,” he explained, and I listened, “is the strong work of God.” He went on, saying of course that our two powerful engines were also strong or we would not be in the air now. The fuel-driven power of our Swedish plane’s engines were considerably greater than the resistance of earth’s pull of gravity.

“Of course,” I said.

He smiled and looked around the plane and said quietly, “Let me explain. Buoyancy is the work of God. It too is strong, stronger than the wind.” He went on to talk about what buoyancy did with water. I admit I was lost. He talked some about the word buoyancy, what a beautiful word it has become.

The dictionaries say it is a beautiful word. People think it means encouragement, cheerfulness, light-heartedness, sprightliness, elasticity of spirit, vivaciousness. Some experts say it means to be invigorated, to sustain, to support someone.

He lost me. “What are you saying?” “Just this,” he said. “Buoyancy is the work of God.”

Where does buoyancy come from? I think I know the answer.

My minister friend is sure. Where else did that power come from? He asked, “if not the Lord?” And where did the buoyancy come from, if not the Word?

It was the free gift of the Creator. “Let me explain,” he said. “Buoyancy is the work of God. He makes it stronger than the wind when the wind is active. “That is buoyancy. Only one power is actually stronger and that of course is those two engines of ours that keep us in the air.”

All this about buoyancy raised a question: Where did buoyancy’s strength come from? My minister friend’s answer was simple. He gave it nearly 50 years ago and I have never forgotten it: “It came from the Creator! It was His plan to have water even stronger than the wind when it was displaced. That is buoyancy.” I was deeply impressed, for it led me to seek in nature even more truth without getting tangled up in Biblical theology. In one of my books I have since found a scribbled note in the margin: “Buoyancy is the work of God.” Today I look at my fingers, stiff from lack of blood, and my legs, that seem so unwilling to climb and hike and swim and dance the two-step as they used to. And I am puzzled when I read the real meaning of buoyancy. Is this another one of those games where I was always left out?

Then I remember a line from that chantey: “My love is all that a love ought to be!... For love that is true never knows a doubt: Bells of the sea, RING OUT!”

I brought my skiff ashore for life. Today, I find the lively word buoyancy has its own unique set of meanings. When anchored in water it can become a lively warning signal so placed as to make it possible to save people’s lives, and can also mark the route that is free from all danger.

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Author Sherwood Wirt is editor emeritus of Decision magazine.