Waiting Without Hope

 

The inexperienced fly fisher in his eagerness, wishful thinking and determination to catch a fish may misinterpret events.  I have seen fly fishers “fight a snag” thinking it was a fish and then when the hook finally pulls free of the rock, he still might persist with his belief saying, “Ah, he got away”.  An impatient fly fisher while nymphing may set the hook at false strikes and mess up the natural drift for a “real” fish that may have been considering taking the fly.  Or when dry fly fishing he may see a fish rise and he wrongly assumes the fish was rising to his fly and he sets the hook only to spook the other fish that may have been looking at his artificial fly.  Each time he may yell, “Ah, I missed it”, when in reality there was no fish on his fly. Or, worse yet, he might set the hook with so much  enthusiasm  that he breaks the leader or the whole leader flies out of the river and wraps around the rod resulting in a ‘birds nest’ mess.  Such mistakes are common to the inexperienced. When I guide such folks, I have to love their enthusiasm and even their ignorance. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ even if it is a bit delusional and they often make a mess of things.

In contrast, mature, experienced fly fishers have the patience and art to allow the fly to drift naturally without false striking.  They are less prone to having false hopes. They know how to discern between snags and fish. They are able to stay attune to the drift of the fly, patiently waiting it out, waiting for that precise moment when a fish truly takes the fly. They have poise. They try not to allow “the wrong thing” distract them or give them false hope. They are not easily fooled. The mature angler knows how to read the signs and distinguish false signs. They do not overly react. They react perfectly. In essence, they know the discipline and art of fly fishing and have learned to wait with authentic hope.   

Perhaps a parallel can be made between the tendencies of beginner fly fishers and immature Christians of the church.  They both have impatience and have a tendency to misinterpret events. They both tend to want drama to the real thing. Being an enthusiastic, impatient, wishful thinker and even a bit delusional in fly fishing is one thing but when it comes to our spiritual lives such wishful thinking can  keep the individual (and church communities)  in a state of spiritual immaturity.  And instead of just ending up with spooked fish and a mess of tangled leader we have Christians making a mess of how they try to communicate their “divine experience” to a skeptical world.  The writer to the book of Hebrews states, “Spiritual meat is for the mature who through practice have their senses trained to discern good from evil”. The mature Christian as well as the mature fly fisher has discernment and this discernment marks their maturity.

Both immature groups, the inexperienced fly fisher and the immature Christian, do not have the art. And as Dante said, “Far worse than in vain is he who leaves the shore and fishes for the truth but has not the art”. In essence, such a person who does not have the art does not do this merely in vain. In other words, the result is not just some useless thing. It is far worse. He makes a mess of things both in fly fishing and in his spiritual life. The immature would be better off not ‘leaving the shore.’ He would be better off learning to wait…..and to wait… and to wait.  Do nothing but wait. But the immature are not good at waiting, both in the church or on the river.  

The human ego, greedy for experience, both in the physical realm (in this case, fly fishing), and the spiritual realm (the immature Christian demanding to experience the divine)  has a tendency to impatiently grab at false hopes and grab for the wrong thing. The fly fisher wants so badly to feel a fish pull and the Christian wants so badly to feel the divine. The words grabbing or snatching seem appropriate to describe this tendency accurately. In both cases, it takes the mature authentic individual who can wait in hopelessness and learns to value the waiting in and of it self. The mature individual knows there are no guarantees of either experience. The fly fisher learns to remain focused on the natural drift of the fly and disciplines himself to not allow anything to disturb that focus. He waits and waits for the right moment and only the right moment.  The mature Christian in prayer like wise remains in silence and focused on the flow of things; the flow of all thoughts, expectations, and anxieties down the river as he empties himself,  waiting for the divine moment;  the narrow gate where God might enter.  

T.S. Eliot had something to say about waiting and not being deceived or distracted by the “wrong thing”. He said, “I said to my soul, be still and wait, wait without hope for hope would be hope of the wrong thing. I said wait without love for love would be love of the wrong thing. Wait without love for love would be love of the wrong thing; Yet there is faith but the faith, the hope and the love are all in the waiting.”

It seems to me that both the immature fly fisher and immature Christian can impatiently hope for the wrong thing. And yet they do not know it is the wrong thing. They have not learned,  (because they have not been taught) the art of waiting. Waiting in both cases is a holding out for the real thing, In a sense, the mature is one who refuses to settle for anything but the truth. He waits for an authentic experience even if that experience is felt as silence and nothingness. He delights in only a pure event. As Donald Nicholl said, “Delight in the truth. Truth tastes better with each illusion that evaporates.”  This process of negation is an old tradition called the via negativa. It holds to the idea that God can perhaps be known, only by first learning to discern about what He is not.  The individual engaged in this process in a sense says, “No, this is not it, No, this is not it,” again and again. He waits and he waits. He has discretion and he is anything but negative. On the contrary, he is of  a “honest and pure heart”.

In this silence of waiting all wishful thinking fades. Only a true faith persistently remains in spite of what is not experienced.   And sometimes out of seemingly no where, a fish takes the fly.

If you would like to dialogue with me on the contents of this essay or any other essay on this blog you can write me at  suragea1@aol.com