Come to the Water

Preaching on baptism in the third century, Tertullian of Carthage said, "We being little fishes, as Jesus Christ is our great Fish, begin our life in the water, and only while we abide in the water are we safe and sound." So it was for Paul Maclean in the movie A River Runs Through It.

The mysterious presence of grace in the world haunts this movie, even as its writer, Paul's older brother Norman Maclean, confesses at the end: "I am haunted by waters." In the midst of wounds known and unknown, and finally death, a river of life runs through it.

Paul knew grace when he was fly-fishing. Wading in the midst of Montana's Blackfoot River, those waters of danger, of ancient time, and of beauty were waters of baptism. His Presbyterian father believed that life rested on grace, that grace came from art, and that art required work. So when Paul has nearly lost his life catching the trout of his life, Norman realizes he is "witnessing perfection, suspended above the Earth, like a work of art," full of grace and truth.

But "life is not a work of art," and that moment, held beyond time, does not last. Grace perceived in others becomes grace extended to us.

Glimpses reappear, even away from the water. Paul tells Jessie, Norman's girlfriend, that her brother's sizzling, drunken, sunburnt body "was my fault. Is Norman forgiven?" He could cover the sins of another, but Paul couldn't confess nor have his own debts forgiven.

With tragedy stalking his memory, Paul and Norman's father says from the pulpit, "We seldom know how to help those closest to us." Then he adds, "But we can love them completely, even without complete understanding."

RUNNING EACH afternoon to the river, the Maclean brothers were sent to learn on their own "the natural side of God's order," in a world touched by wonder and possibility. And waters. One day watching him in the art of fly-fishing, Norman suddenly marvels that Paul has discovered "a rhythm all of his own."

Those waters flow, for all of us. They come as threatening floods, as liberation from Pharaoh's pursuing armies, as terrifying storms on the Sea of Galilee, as living wells with Samaritans, as the cleansing Jordan, as grace.

For the fishing brothers first called by Christ and all who have since followed, waters of baptism create community. For the Maclean brothers, we see only moments of this; mostly we grieve the loss of communion.

I left A River Runs Through It reflecting on my own journey, now going on 25 years, of searching, knowing, losing, grieving, and discovering community. Perhaps we cannot fully understand those with whom we have entered into the waters of baptism and formed our communities. But we can trust that the other is being carried by the waters of God's grace; loving completely, without complete understanding.

Paul and Norman risked their lives, heading out of Missoula, Montana, in a borrowed boat, trying to shoot the rapids. And for those first former fishermen who followed the One from Galilee, the boat became the earliest symbol of the church.

For a decade, I lived with the joy and pain of a Christian community in Missoula. And I learned how to fly-fish, trying to find my own rhythm. Today I long to see how such grace can carry the whole of Christ's body in one boat, crashing over the rocks, beneath which, as Maclean suggests, are the Words of God. Finally things merge into one...because a river runs through it.

See this movie. I know the story is true.

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson was program secretary for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland and author of Redeeming the Creation (WCC Publications, 1992) when this article appeared.

A River Runs Through It. Story by Norman Maclean. Directed by Robert Redford. Columbia Pictures, 1993.