Theme: Folksy wisdom is rooted in biblical wisdom: An Anecdote on Composure

I remember a conversation I had with my mom when I was a boy. I had returned from fishing one of my favorite fishing spots (we called them honey holes) and it had been one of those long sunny Spring days on the water replete with many of my favorite smells–jasmine, honeysuckle, fish on the bed, the pungent smell of the banks of a pond in Spring, where the skinny-legged herons stand like white bobbing cranes, plucking shad from the shallows, and bass roll and send that shiver up every eager angler’s spine, and you feel it in your whole being that Spring is here, the fish are moving, the dogwoods are blooming, and hope springs eternal, as the poet quipped.

I was telling Mom about the day on the water we’d had when we returned home, and I told her how much I respected a certain man. He’s so calm about it all, I told her; he’s retired from the military and has done so much. She just looked at me and said, “Still waters run deep.” I love that metaphor. Anything to do with water seems to bathe my imagination in meaning. And the idea of composure being like the surface of calm waters spoke volumes to me.

Connection: That folksy wisdom is rooted in biblical wisdom. Proverbs 17:1 (ESV) says, “Better is a dry morsel with quiet than a house full of feasting with strife.” That’s so vivid, isn’t it? Peace/tranquility/composure is preferable to drama, in other words, because it’s rooted in wisdom. Better is a small simple pleasure (like fishing with one’s stepdad at a beloved honey hole), than a palace infected by drama and upheaval. Indeed those still waters run deep.