In this week’s commentary, I draw on some of the insights contained in the forthcoming translation of a section of Abraham Kuyper’s work on common grace, Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art, to discuss the relationship between work and the natural world after the fall. (You can pre-order Wisdom & Wonder today and be among the first to get the book when it is released next week.)
I found especially pertinent the insights offered by a Michigan fisherman Ed Patnode, who describes his entrepreneurial turn into the charter fishing business:
He decided to start running a charter boat about six years ago. Back then, he used to go fishing every weekend with a group of friends.
“It got to be expensive each weekend going. And so we were just trying to see ‘Hey, how can we cut our losses.’ It was really, really how do we get out there and get other people to help us pay?” (laughs)
And with a lifetime of experience, maybe even obsession, with catching fish, he certainly knew enough to do it.
The bit I used in this week’s commentary, “Work, the Curse, and Common Grace,” is what Ed says next:
But as much as he knows about fish, there’s still more he wishes he could know.
“You know we’d be rich if we could tap into the mind of a fish, just get that fish to talk and tell us why do you like pink, or can you tell us what days you’re going to bite pink on and what other factors are influencing your decision to bite this pink lure today.”
I bring in Kuyper’s musings about how this kind of insight into the nature of animals was something we lost in the fall. Common grace works to provide us with some way to learn about things in this world, so we are not completely blind or helpless. But even so, things are not the way they were or the way they will be after the Christ’s return and the consummation.
This is a perfect occasion to tell my own “big” fish story. As a boy I would visit my dad and step-mother during the summers here in Michigan, and my step-mom’s family had a cottage on a small lake. Early one morning my dad and I took the small rowboat out to the other side of the lake, where the mist was still coming off the water. As we neared the other shore, I readied my first cast of the day. As soon as it hit the water, BANG! I got a hit.
I was so excited, but I didn’t really know what to do, but I remember working that fish back and forth to the boat. It seemed like it took forever, and my arms sure were tired. But when we hauled that fish in I couldn’t believe it. It was a 4.5 pound largemouth bass, somewhere in the range of 20″, as I recall. I was so happy that I wanted to head right back in and show everyone. Wiser heads prevailed, as it was still very early in the morning and no one else was awake. Even so, as far as I was concerned my fishing day was done after that first cast, and I probably scared all the other fish away with the excited tapping of my legs, waiting for time to pass so we could go back with the fish. To this day that’s the best fish I ever caught.
