Sometimes while right in the middle of teaching someone to fly fish and we are casting in a run and we are not hooking up fish, I will say, “Stop, lets step back and just watch”. I will then ask him to step back out of the river with me and climb the bank or sit on top of a boulder and look at the run we are trying to fish. The distance gives us some perspective and a bigger vision of what is going on and what we are trying to accomplish. As we look at the water from some distance, from the fringe, we will then better notice exactly where the fish are and try to figure out their feeding patterns and what are the best drift lines. We will then come up with a game plan, a strategy to make the best presentations that will hopefully give us the best shot at the biggest fish in the run.
Spiritually, I also often like to ‘step back’ now and then and try to be more aware of what I am actually thinking and doing and how I am living and interacting with those around me. Sometimes I just need to go off and fish by myself and ponder things and even distance myself in regard to the organized structured Christian church, it’s teachings, it’s influence and it’s ways of doing things. When I am too close to it, I don’t know if I am seeing things, or myself, or even God as I ought. I need space and perspective to better see what is going on. I can then better pay attention to patterns within myself and others and compare it with what I know (Or hope I know), to be true about God, the church and how I think it might be able to function from a Biblical perspective. In other words I don’t necessarily believe everything I am seeing and experiencing or others claim to be experiencing as being the ultimate reality. I would rather step back and read the waters more carefully and deeply and also look at the images deep with in my heart. The images in my heart give me a glimpse of what life could be and that includes the life of the church.
Can a person spiritually step back and get some distance and at the same time not back out on his commitments? Of course, opinions would vary in responding to this question. I personally think we can, that we need to, and that we must, although I do admit it is a bit tricky for when ever we step back out of the mainstream current, there is the danger of falling off. There is also the danger of being labeled as one who “rocks the boat” and some people don’t like their boats to be rocked, especially when it comes to religion.
However, I do know that when I carefully stand on that rock, from the edge and I carefully examine everything, there is another change that takes place in me from being on the fringe. I simply don’t care and worry so much about the petty things. I don’t care so much about the approval of others. I don’t care about being polite for the sake of being polite. I don’t care about being politically correct. I don’t care what the mainstream thinks of me. I don’t care if they think I am a fool and “out there’. And when I no longer care about these things by no longer allowing my neurotic compulsions of trying to please others and fitting in the mainstream to rule my life, I find I live with a new freedom and power. I am not afraid to see things as I see them or hear things as I hear them or say things as I believe even if that means not being a part of the mainstream. I would rather try to please the One who truly lived on the fringe.
I find some comfort as I think of the people of great faith in Hebrews chapter 11 who did please God, who stepped “back” out of the mainstream, and were described as living on the fringe, on the edge; Those “who went about in sheepskins, in goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, ill treated (men of whom the world the world was not worthy) wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground.” I think of John the Baptist crying out in the wilderness with locust in his teeth. I think of Jesus speaking to us from a fringe of some other kingdom and how different and alive his words were to those who heard and now are to us; Words that were so alive and true, people hated him for it. I think of the poet Roethke who wrote of the edge, “That place among the rocks-is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have.” I think of the woman in the Gospels who felt the urge to simply touch the outer hem of Jesus’ garment.
Jesus is the edge, the point, the outer fringe of God that touches our world, touches us, and touches me. We meet God at the edge. Can we step back and climb this rock (watch your balance) and just watch for a little while. What do you see? What do you feel?
Let’s talk about what we discover.
And if nothing else, you might have a better shot at catching that 22 inch rainbow lying down deep along side of that submerged log. But to have a chance of hooking that fish you are going to have to fish the edge of the current, a narrow seam line that will get the fly right along the edge of that log; A dangerous and risky cast indeed.
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