Author: H. H. Pope Shenouda Ill.
the calm person, through his calmness, can reach the depths, if he has a gift for contemplation. But it is not necessarily the case that a calm person is deep. It would be more correct for us to say that every deep person is calm. Here I marvel at an expression given by one of the spiritual men of letters, which I have probably repeated to you on more than one occasion, which is: "When God cast me as a pebble into the lake of life, I caused bubbles at its surface and circles rippling out to infinity.
But when I reached the bottom, I became calm." The waves are turbulent on the surface of the sea, just as the depths of the sea, or the bottom of the ocean are calm, so too is the person. When he is going through a unimportant period and living a superficial and shallow life, he wants to cause ripples on the surface of life with circles rippling outwards to infinity, but when he reaches a more mature age and can think more deeply, he becomes calm. The shallow, superficial person is restless, he goes around trying to 'find' himself, or trying to fulfil himself, whichever way he can.