“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude, but the fact is that in the day to day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance, or so I wish to suggest to you on this dry and lovely morning.”
Foster states that the point of the fish story is about how “the obvious and important realities of life can be the most difficult to see” (when we are so wrapped up in our own lives/selves, viewing the world through our “lens of self,” I might add).
For me, “this is water” is a reminder about being aware of my surroundings, my present, and my reality within a larger context. Foster, as someone who tends to over-intellectualize in his head, alludes to this as well, saying he can get lost in his own head instead of “simply paying attention to what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.”
Ever since I heard (or read) this commencement speech, the three-word phrase “this is water” has stuck with me. And this is my attempt at unpacking what these three words mean to me.
In Pastor Andrew’s sermon titled, Pure Religion, he talked about how “we have bought into our culture’s definition of true freedom,” and the open road, which has become a symbol of freedom, is this kind of ideal that we look to and uphold with reverence. It’s true. I’ve dreamed of fantasies in which I leave everything and live a simple life working at a coffee shop in the middle of Europe, free (or so I think) from my own prison of my own expectations and those of others, the burden of responsibilities, constraints to my independence, pressure, and the tyranny of the infinite “should’s.” However, as Pastor Andrew rightly pointed out “complete autonomy is an allusion. The solution is not to throw off all constraints, but to find the right ones.” The solution, as Keller points out in Every Good Endeavour, is “[Jesus’s] yoke and burden” which “is the only one that is light.” If not Jesus’s yoke, I’d find something else to attach myself to, to enslave myself to, whether that is money, satisfaction, comfort, desire, control, or power.
Tim Keller puts it this way: “If true freedom is really about having no rules or constrains, then for a fish who has gills, it should be seen as repressive to restrict it to water. Why not put it on land? Why put those constraints? We should just let it free. But the fish wasn’t created to live that way. The moment you put it on land, it’s going to die. But when you restrict it to water, you see it swim, move, and live in the way it was created to be. And that is freedom - finding the right boundaries and constraints that align with your nature.”
“True freedom is living out who God has called us to be. And this is not a heavy burden. But an invitation to experience the freedom we were made for, to be truly human, to flourish by submitting to the Word of God, what James calls the law of liberty.”
DFW concluded his speech by summing up the value of education as “simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
So it is with this outlook that I wish to wade through the tides of life. To be aware of my constraints as a human, to be aware that it is only within the boundaries of God’s law and word, that I can truly be free.
As Jesus reminded me this morning, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).
And that truth is found in the arms of our Father. This is my water.
gracieabrams
izzy806
snowghoul
origamiaround
ellievsbear
andulkaphoto
titsay
amandla