"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (Proverbs 9:10). And Peter urges us to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18).
These nine stories about wisdom, foolishness and growth, retold in our own words, include a doomed Arctic expedition, an empire that thought it could never fall, a lecture that fooled the experts, explorers who starved while eating, an eagle raised by rabbits, a family tradition nobody understood, a tailor puzzled by praise, cod kept fresh by catfish and a toy rabbit who wanted to become real. Each ends with a takeaway for sermons or reflection.
Stories in this collection:
- Silver Forks in the Ice: The Lost Franklin Expedition
- "Your Lives": Alaric at the Gates of Rome
- The Dr Fox Effect: Fooled by an Expert
- Starving While Eating: Scott of the Antarctic
- Eddie the Eagle Who Thought He Was a Rabbit
- Why We Cut the End off the Roast
- Driving God Crazy: The Tailor and the Rabbi
- Codfish and Catfish
- Becoming Real: The Velveteen Rabbit
Silver Forks in the Ice: The Lost Franklin Expedition
Based on Annie Dillard's account in Teaching a Stone to Talk; some of her details are disputed by historians, as noted below.
In her essay collection Teaching a Stone to Talk, the American writer Annie Dillard tells a sad but powerful story about what happens when we set out unprepared.
In 1845 a British naval expedition led by Captain Sir John Franklin sailed from England to find and chart the Northwest Passage, the long-sought sea route through the Canadian Arctic to the Pacific Ocean. It had two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. Neither ship returned, and none of the 129 officers and men who remained with the expedition survived.
Dillard writes that the expedition was equipped more like a gentleman's pleasure cruise than a gruelling journey through one of the most hostile environments on earth. The ships carried libraries of more than a thousand books and a hand organ, as well as fine china, cut-glass wine goblets and elegant sterling silver cutlery for the officers. Years later, searchers found pieces of that silverware scattered across the frozen landscape, some near the remains of men who had died in the snow.
The ships sailed into the frozen waters of the Arctic and became trapped in the ice near King William Island. They were held fast for more than a year. In April 1848 the surviving men abandoned the ships and set out on foot across the ice, hoping to reach safety far to the south. One by one they died of cold, starvation, scurvy and disease. Bones found later bore cut marks suggesting that, in their desperation, some had resorted to cannibalism. For years afterwards, search parties kept finding remains scattered over a vast area.
Dillard also claims that the men had not prepared for the cold. She says that on a voyage expected to last two or three years, they took little more than their standard naval clothing, and that the ships carried only a few days' supply of coal for their steam engines. Historians question some of these details: the expedition was in fact one of the best-supplied of its day, with food for three years. But Dillard's most haunting image remains: the frozen body of an officer found miles from the ships, still dressed in his fine blue uniform with silk braid, a blue greatcoat and a silk neckerchief. It was noble, respectable clothing, and completely inadequate for where he was.
The wrecks of both ships were finally found, Erebus in 2014 and Terror in 2016, lying on the Arctic seabed.
Takeaway: Wisdom prepares for the journey we are actually on, not the one we wish we were on. Jesus warned about building without counting the cost (Luke 14:28–30). Are we spiritually equipped for life's hard seasons?
Source: Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk (1982); historical records of Franklin's lost expedition.
"Your Lives": Alaric at the Gates of Rome
The Roman Empire was one of the greatest the world has known. For centuries the Romans dominated the Mediterranean world, building magnificent cities and roads that still survive today, and imposing their own "peace" on the peoples they conquered. In the time of Jesus, and for centuries afterwards, Rome's power seemed unshakeable.
By the early fifth century, Rome had been the centre of a superpower for the best part of eight hundred years. Its citizens had grown up on stories of their armies' victories in faraway lands, and they were convinced of their superiority to the "barbarian" peoples beyond their borders. Surely their city could never fall.
Then, in 408, they woke to find Alaric, king of the Visigoths, camped outside their walls with his army.
How absurd, the Romans thought, that this man imagined Rome could fall to him. Envoys were sent out to negotiate. According to the ancient historian Zosimus, they began with threats: if Alaric attacked, he would face the vast strength of Rome's countless warriors.
Alaric's reply was blunt. The thicker the grass, he said, the easier it is to mow.
The envoys realised that empty threats would not work. So they asked what price he would take to leave. Alaric told them: all the gold and silver in the city, everything of value that could be carried away, and every barbarian slave held in Rome.
The envoys were horrified. If he took all that, they asked, what would be left for them?
Alaric's answer was chilling: their lives.
Rome paid an enormous ransom that time. But in 410 Alaric's forces entered and sacked the city itself, the first time in about eight hundred years that Rome had fallen to a foreign enemy. Writing in the Holy Land, the scholar Jerome said that the city which had taken the whole world had itself been taken. The Western Roman Empire would struggle on for a few more decades, but Rome's age of seeming invincibility was over.
Takeaway: Pride blinds us to danger. "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18). No nation, church or person is too great to fall.
Source: Account based on Zosimus, New History; retold in Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995).
The Dr Fox Effect: Fooled by an Expert
In 1973 researchers at the University of Southern California carried out a famous experiment. They hired a professional actor, Michael Fox, gave him an impressive false identity as "Dr Myron L. Fox", an authority on the application of mathematics to human behaviour, and asked him to give a lecture to audiences of professionals.
The talk was deliberately meaningless. The actor was coached to present material drawn from a scientific article as a stream of double-talk, made-up words, non sequiturs and contradictory statements. At the same time, he was told to be lively, warm and engaging, and to sprinkle his talk with jokes and references to unrelated topics.
The audiences included psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and educators. Afterwards they filled in anonymous questionnaires. Most rated the lecture favourably: they reported that it was clear, well organised and stimulating. Hardly anyone noticed that it made no sense.
This became known as the Dr Fox effect. Later, J. Scott Armstrong of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School explored a related idea, sometimes called the Dr Fox hypothesis. His research suggested that people may rate experts in their own field more highly when what they write is harder to understand.
Takeaway: Style is not substance, and confidence is not truth. "Test everything; hold on to what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Wisdom listens carefully and asks whether what is said is actually true.
Source: Naftulin, Ware and Donnelly, Journal of Medical Education (1973); J. Scott Armstrong, Interfaces (1980); reported in Leadership magazine, Spring 1983.
Starving While Eating: Scott of the Antarctic
Robert Falcon Scott, often remembered as "Scott of the Antarctic", is one of the most famous explorers of modern times. In January 1912 he and four companions reached the South Pole, only to discover that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by about five weeks. On the long journey back, all five men died.
For many years people have asked why. Bad weather, injuries, scurvy and the failure of supplies to reach them all played a part. But some scientists have suggested another, surprising factor: in effect, the men may have been starving to death even while they were eating.
That sounds like nonsense, but it is not. An ordinary adult needs a certain amount of food energy each day to stay healthy. According to estimates popularised by the Australian science writer Karl Kruszelnicki, Scott's men were eating roughly three times what a normal person needs. That sounds like plenty.
The problem was the work they were doing. Hauling heavy sledges by hand across ice and snow, day after day, in extreme cold, burns energy at an extraordinary rate. Some estimates suggest they needed far more than they were eating, perhaps twice as much again. Even on generous rations, their bodies were running at a deficit. Researchers have suggested that the men lost a great deal of weight and gradually weakened until they could go no further.
There are times in life when we are like those Antarctic explorers. When we face a crisis, we need far more support, care and prayer than usual. And when our friends go through such times, we should expect that they will need much larger helpings of our love, care and prayers than normal.
The same is true of our spiritual lives. When life becomes tough or busy, we are tempted to cut back on prayer, reflection, Scripture and fellowship. Yet those are precisely the times we need more, not less, if we are to avoid spiritual starvation.
Takeaway: Growth requires nourishment, especially in hard seasons. Jesus said, "Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4).
Source: Scientific information popularised in Karl Kruszelnicki, New Moments in Science; historical sources on the Terra Nova Expedition.
Eddie the Eagle Who Thought He Was a Rabbit
A modern parable by Scott Higgins, similar to an older tale about an eagle raised among chickens.
Once upon a time there was a baby eagle called Eddie. Eddie came into the world by forcing his way out of his eggshell, and found himself sharing a nest with his brothers and sisters at the top of a very tall tree.
One day a strong wind blew up. The nest rocked wildly from side to side, and at one point it tipped so far that poor little Eddie fell out. He was not yet old enough to fly, so down he tumbled, through the branches, all the way to the ground, and, amazingly, straight into a rabbit burrow at the foot of the tree. When he picked himself up, he found himself among a litter of baby bunnies born at about the same time as him.
Now rabbits may be good at many things, but they are not famous for being clever. No one realised that Eddie was a baby eagle. They simply assumed he was an odd-looking rabbit. So Eddie was adopted into the family and grew up learning to live like a rabbit. He hopped and jumped, lived in the family burrow and ate grass and lettuce.
Of course, all his life Eddie struggled with a terrible sense of inferiority. He didn't look like the other rabbits. He was always the last to be chosen for hopping games. And he was often sick from eating grass.
Then one day his life changed. Eddie and his rabbit brothers and sisters were playing in a field when a dark shadow spread across the ground. They looked up and saw a mighty eagle diving towards them. Squealing with fear, the rabbits ran as fast as they could for the cover of the bushes.
Eddie knew he was done for. He could not run as fast as the others. He watched them all reach safety while he was still hopping frantically across the open field. The great eagle came closer and closer, until Eddie could feel its shadow right over him. He braced himself for the end.
Then he heard the eagle cry out: What are you doing hopping around on the ground like a rabbit? You're an eagle! Spread your wings and fly!
Startled and confused, Eddie began to move those useless things at his sides. He stretched them out and started to flap. Suddenly he found himself lifting off the ground, and then soaring effortlessly into the sky. That day Eddie discovered that he was not made to hop along the ground, but to fly.
The same is true of us. God created us with enormous dignity and honour, to bear his image on earth. We grow up in a world that tells us we are something less than that. But when we discover who we truly are in Christ, we can rise up and become everything we were created to be.
Takeaway: Growth begins when we discover our true identity. "If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). "Those who hope in the Lord... will soar on wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31).
Source: Parable by Scott Higgins.
Why We Cut the End off the Roast
A traditional story told in many versions.
A little girl noticed that every time her mother cooked a roast, she cut a piece off the end of the meat before putting it in the oven. Curious, the girl asked her mother why she did that.
Her mother thought for a moment. To be honest, she said, she did it because that was the way her own mother had always done it. She was sure Grandma must have had a good reason.
At the next family gathering, the little girl decided to solve the mystery. She asked her grandmother why she always cut the end off the roast before cooking it.
Her grandmother gave exactly the same answer. To be honest, she said, she did it because that was how her mother had always done it. She was sure there must be a good reason for it.
A week or so later, the little girl went to visit her great-grandmother, who was ninety years old. She explained that Mummy and Grandma always cut the end off the roast before cooking it, but neither of them could remember why. Did Great-grandma know?
The old woman burst out laughing. Fancy the two of them still doing that! she said. Why, she had only ever cut the end off because her roasting pan was too small.
Takeaway: Some traditions carry deep wisdom; others are just habits whose reasons have been forgotten. Jesus challenged traditions that had lost their purpose (Mark 7:8–9). Growth means asking why we do what we do.
Source: Traditional story; author unknown.
Driving God Crazy: The Tailor and the Rabbi
A Hasidic story, told by Rabbi Harold Kushner in his book Who Needs God (1989).
A tailor named Mendel once came to his rabbi with a problem about prayer.
I am a tailor, he explained, and from time to time people compliment me on my work. It is very satisfying to hear their praise. One kind word can keep me going for a week.
But imagine, he went on, if people came to me all day, every day, saying over and over again, Mendel, you are a wonderful tailor. Mendel, you are a wonderful tailor. It would drive me crazy! I would get to the point where I never wanted to hear another compliment. I would tell them all to go away and let me work in peace.
And that is what bothers me about prayer, he said. If a few of us told God once a week how wonderful he is, surely that would be enough. Is God really so insecure that he needs all of us to praise him morning, noon and night? Hundreds, thousands, millions of people, all praising him at once. Surely that would drive God crazy!
The rabbi smiled. Mendel, he said, you are absolutely right. You have no idea how hard it is for God to listen to all our praises, day in and day out, twenty-four hours a day.
But God knows how important it is for us to offer our praise, the rabbi continued. And so, because of his great love for us, God puts up with all our prayers.
Takeaway: God does not need our praise; we need to give it. Worship shapes and grows us, turning our hearts towards the One who loves us. "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord" (Psalm 150:6).
Source: Harold Kushner, Who Needs God (1989).
Codfish and Catfish
A popular illustration, often told by the pastor Charles Swindoll; it is probably a parable rather than a true account of the fishing industry.
According to the story, some years ago the cod fishing industry on the north-east coast of the United States faced a problem. Customers wanted their fish as fresh as possible. But how could the cod be kept fresh while they were transported across the country?
When the fish were frozen, they lost too much of their flavour. When they were shipped alive in tanks of seawater, they arrived soft and mushy, because they had done nothing but lie still all the way.
Finally, the story goes, someone came up with a solution. They put catfish into the tanks with the cod. The catfish chased the cod around the tanks for the whole journey, keeping them constantly on the move. As a result, the cod arrived in better condition than ever before: firm, lively and full of flavour.
Telling this story, Chuck Swindoll points out that all of us need catfish in our lives: the difficult people and testing situations that may not be pleasant, but that keep us alert, healthy and growing.
Takeaway: God can use difficult people and hard seasons to grow us. "Consider it pure joy... whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance" (James 1:2–4).
Source: Illustration told by Charles Swindoll; origin unverified.
Becoming Real: The Velveteen Rabbit
The Velveteen Rabbit, a children's book by Margery Williams first published in 1922, tells the story of a stuffed toy rabbit given to a little boy as a Christmas present.
At first the boy plays with him for a while and then forgets him. The rabbit lives in the nursery with all the other toys, some of them expensive mechanical toys that look down on him. He waits shyly for the day when the boy will choose him as a playmate.
In time the rabbit makes friends with the old Skin Horse, the oldest and wisest toy in the nursery, who is shabby and worn from years of being loved. The Skin Horse tells him the secret every nursery toy longs for: to be made Real through the love of a child.
One day the rabbit asks the Skin Horse what Real means. Is it having things that buzz inside you and a handle that sticks out?
Real isn't how you are made, the Skin Horse replies. It is something that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.
The rabbit asks whether it hurts. Sometimes, says the Skin Horse, who always tells the truth. But when you are Real, you don't mind being hurt.
Does it happen all at once, the rabbit wonders, like being wound up, or bit by bit?
It doesn't happen all at once, the Skin Horse explains. You become. It takes a long time. That is why it doesn't often happen to toys that break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Usually, by the time you are Real, most of your fur has been loved off, your eyes have dropped out, your joints are loose and you are very shabby. But none of that matters at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
Takeaway: Growth in love takes time, and it often leaves us worn and scarred. In marriage, friendship and faith, we become "real" bit by bit. "Love is patient, love is kind... It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres" (1 Corinthians 13:4–7).
Source: Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit (1922).
Final thoughts
Silver forks in the ice, a ransom for Rome, a lecture that fooled the experts, explorers starving on full rations, an eagle among rabbits, a roast that was too big for the pan, a tailor and his rabbi, catfish in the tank and a rabbit becoming real. Together they remind us that wisdom begins with humility, and that growth is a lifelong journey.
For further reading, Sopranu explores what makes a good life and reviews The Brain That Changes Itself, on how we can grow and change.
Where is God inviting you to grow in wisdom this season?
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These stories are retold in our own words for teaching and reflection. Sources are credited under each story.