Quiet Time

Greetings All,


You all know my love of music, especially jazz and songs about the beach, and my knack for hearing real truth in the words of some troubadour, but imagine my surprise when I discovered that Jimmy Buffett of Margaritaville fame is also an author. Turns out the little life truths you find like hidden gems in his songs are in his book as well. Sometimes folks that are just writing as opposed to writing Christian books get it more right. I wanted to share a quick passage from the book about quiet time that the hero, Tully Mars, is sharing with another fishing guide, Ix-Nay.

"Every good fishing spot had a nickname, and Quiet Time was properly named. Just off the beach, I spotted the tails of a small school of bonefish swimming lazily in a circle near a crescent-shaped sandbar. Not far from them, a medium-size barracuda lay motionless, his black eye on the fish. Normally this would spell trouble for the bonefish, but not at Quiet Time at this phase of the tide.

Ix-Nay had revealed the secret of the spot the day after he had saved me from the crocodile attack when we met. We had climbed into the branches of a tree to eat lunch. As we were propped up in the shade enjoying our ham-and-cheese sandwiches, I spotted two huge snook sitting motionless in the water. Right nest to them, a six-foot shark inched his way along the edge. I thought for sure the shark would lunge instinctively at the fish and join us for lunch, but he just cruised by the snook and disappeared over the turtle grass.

'That's odd,' I said, referring to the lack of predatory behavior in the ocean.

'Not really,' Ix-Nay told me. 'It always happens a the slack tide. Most of the time fish are swimming around either eating or avoiding being eaten.'

'I know a lot of humans that do the same thing.'

'But fish know they need a break from the cycle of the food chain, and that happens at slack tide.'

'So it's kind of a universal time-out?'

'I call it Quiet Time,' Ix-Nay said. 'People would be better off if they did the same.'

'How so?'

'You have to think more like fish than a man and look for the slack tides and the pools and eddies in life so you can catch your breath and reflect on the good moments.' from A Salty Piece of Land by Jimmy Buffett, pages 206-207.

A fictional Mayan fishing guide and a on-the-lamb cowboy from Wyoming in one simple conversation just defined a truth of the Christian life that most of us miss. Will you join me today in looking for a pool or eddy from which we can catch our breath and reflect on the good moments of life?

Your brother in Christ,
Faron