Un-Knowing: The Paradox of Knowing and Not Knowing

It seems that the moment we think we have figured something out we often find that it is not the way. I am not talking about basic issues of theology or the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith.  But I am trying to discuss the manner in which at times we take on some new way of thinking or discover some new principle of the Christian life that seems to “work” and becomes the “ticket” for answered prayer or some other Christian spiritual experience.  We then settle in, sort of bunker down, thinking this “way” will always “work”; books and manuals are written on it; lectures and sermons are preached on it only to discover with out our notice (or, perhaps our refusal to notice), that just when we think we figured things out, things have been turned up side down.  Then we have to start all over again, lose our way and we don’t know.  

I have also learned this ‘un- knowing’ in fly fishing. I might have a great day of fishing using a certain fly in a certain section of river with a certain technique. I conclude that I cracked the code. I go back the next day in the same spot, at the same time, with the same fly, the same technique only to discover that this way does not work and I just don’t know.  

Perhaps we have a tendency to make premature conclusions about the spiritual life and about fly fishing only to discover we don’t really know as much as we thought. We tend to organize formulas about these things. Perhaps the moment we say, “This is how we experience God”, that way disappears. Perhaps the moment we say, “This is how we catch these fish”, the fish move. Such an arrangement keeps us humble as both God and fish can become mysteriously hidden.

Kipling wrote a poem titled, “The Way Through the Woods”. In the first stanza Kipling states the same line twice; “There was once a road through the woods”.  In the second stanza he writes how if you take this road you will see trout feeding in pools,

“If you enter the woods

Of a summer evening late,

When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools” . . .

But then he concludes the poem with this final contradictory line,

“But there is no road through the woods”.

What?! So. where is  the road through the woods to the trout-ringed pools?  . There is no road through the woods? Is it hidden?

As soon as I try to guide another person into finding what might be divine about fly fishing my words seem to vaporize as I speak them. I might suggest while fly fishing that the person needs to think or look at nature a certain way. Perhaps I might suggest looking or thinking deeper about what is “behind” or “under” the river or, to “Consider the Lily of the field”. I might speak of fly fishing being rhythmic and a form of mediation and that can make it spiritual. Or maybe I might suggest the other extreme of not thinking or trying at all and to simply fish.  Regardless, of what I might suggest or not suggest sometimes I only discover that rather than God being present, he is somewhere else, seemingly absent or hidden by all accounts of my senses and beyond my experience.

And then I know there is no road through the woods. Or at least the road I thought I knew.

And even this way of not knowing is not the way.

Fighting Fish:Wrestling With God

In “A River Runs Through It” Paul is battling a big fish. Norman and his Father are watching in admiration. Norman comments, “Although the act involved a big man and a big fish, it looked more like children playing.”

When I picture this scene of Paul, a master fly fisher “playing” with this huge fish, I think of other activities where mastery of an art resembles play. They say Picasso painted like a child at play. Or sometimes when we watch an accomplished athlete in his or her field it almost looks like play. Long distance Olympic runners surging past the competition late in the race looks easy and fun and resembles child play.

For 15 years I personally was engaged in the intense sport of wrestling.  I competed with some of the best in the country. I remember vividly when I watched some of the top guys, it looked like they were just playing around and scoring points at will without effort. It kind of looked like play.

If our perception is of a person merely playing then this is probably an indication that the highest level of mastery has been achieved whether it be a sport, an art, a debate, or, in the case of this discussion, fly fishing. With such mastery there seems to be a calm flow of one event blending into another even in the midst of a battle. The master artist stays calm maintaining a stoic like poise.

For me, battles with fish bring to mind the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord as recorded in the book of Genesis. The story stirs in me a powerful image of a man striving and wrestling with the angel of the Lord all night long until day break. While this image is certainly intense,  I can’t but help wonder if there is something almost playful and childlike about this wrestling match. At the very end, the angel wants to leave, but Jacob puts him in his best hold and refuses to let him go until he blesses him. This kind of reminds me of when a kid gets another kid down on the ground in a headlock and says, “Say uncle, or I won’t let you go”

All of this can also remind me of the master fly fisher refusing to let a large fish “go” until the fisherman catches the fish and has it in his hands to admire before releasing it (Is this not some what childish?). In essence the fisherman is saying to the fish, as he battles it, “No, I will not let you go until I touch you, hold you in my hands and admire your beauty.” And like Paul, the master fisherman will play this fight like a game, very skillfully, and will go to great lengths of allowing the fish to pull out line, only for the fisherman to take it back, time and time again, until he emerges as the victor.  

I personally believe that at least some part of our relationship to the divine takes a similar  form of “wrestling”. My prayers are a type of wrestling and at times, like a child I am laughing at myself for the crazy requests I make or laughing at the possibilities of what could actually come true. Maybe I am deluded but I feel there is somewhat of a “give and take” in this relationship just as at times when playing a big fish we have to simply submit to the power and then at other times we have to act and take in the line. I also think and hope that prayer not only changes me but perhaps the heart of God?  Why else would we pray if we did not believe that our prayers, our conversation, our words, our “wrestling” with God, could “change” Gods heart to act in some way in our lives, on our behalf?  Of course I know there can be a wrong and demanding manner in which we try to wrestle.  And Jacob who’s name can be translated, “Grabber” had his issues. Grabbing at the divine can be too hasty and demanding just as a fly fisher can impatiently grab at a fish, try to reel it in too quickly and how that can result in a mess.  We need to be careful if we are going to wrestle with God. We don’t want to walk away, as Jacob did, with some sort of a dislocation.

   

Yet, with reverence, I personally choose to try to “wrestle with God”,  and in a small way fly fishing reminds me of this striving. For me this wrestling and striving often takes a different form. At times for me, it is as simple as uttering the words, “Lord I am here, Where are you”?  Often what then comes is the vast silence that lasts until dawn. I stand there waiting in the silence and emptiness. Nothing happens. Nothing changes. Just nothing….   This waiting in silence, this remaining, this holding out, is a form of wrestling and is a very important component of competitive wrestling. I know from years of competition that one of the most important aspects to winning a wrestling match was to simply hold ones position. Likewise with fishing.  Likewise when wrestling with God.

While I wait in silence in prayer spiritually holding my position trying to not lose patience or changing the “channel” in my brain I am sometimes also filled with deep longings for a Love that is beyond my understanding and beyond my grasp. I am “grasped by what I cannot grasp” (Rilke) . I am held by what I cannot hold; touched by what I cannot touch, feel or see. And as C.S Lewis once said, “If we cannot practice the presence of God, perhaps we can practice the absence of God”.

And while I am waiting and waiting and trying to be still, and trying to be quiet in the silence, it can help to be fly fishing.

Back to the Arkansas: Exploring Pueblo's Tail Water and Arriving Back

“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”. T.S Eliot

Yesterday, my dear friend the Reverend Jim White and I returned to explore the Arkansas below Pueblo dam. How could we not? Jim had landed a 25 and a half inch rainbow just  two weeks ago.

For me, there is something about this fishery that is a throw back in time. It reminds me of a time decades ago of fishing for large trout that were not yet ultra selective and over fished. It brings me back to a time when fished hooked went wild and ballistic. It brings me back to a time when fish caught were not all scarred up and with broken off flies in their jaws. And even the somewhat urban setting reminds me of fishing my roots back in New Jersey.

So, Jim and I explored its waters down below Pueblo Boulevard. Since neither of us had fished this section of river we never knew what was just around the bend and what possible large forms lay in the riffles, runs and pools. Even this exploring was reminiscent of a much earlier time in both our lives of exploring our first waters as kids. And somehow this unknowing made our exploration all the more exciting and also innocent and that innocence also brought us back in time.

Did we arrive where we started in some way? And did we know the place as for the first time?  We caught numerous rainbows and some that were 18-20 inches on RS2’s, Pig-sticker worms and size 18 bead head pheasant tails.

Did I see a 20 inch rainbow as I once did 30 years ago when I caught my first “trophy trout”.? Not quite, but perhaps, somewhat. I have not ceased from exploration. I am still exploring trying to get back to that place and to know it as for the first time.

And my faith?  Can I return to an earlier child like place?  Yes, I  think so; Perhaps.  Yes, I would like to know once again what it is to believe in a loving God as for the first time.

I shall not cease from such exploration.

Edges Carved In the Earth: Narrow Living Waters

 

Over the decades I have deeply pondered the words of Jesus when he spoke about being the way, the truth and the life.  I have meditated on how he described himself as being the vine of life and a narrow path that leads to life. I have also deeply considered what he meant when he said he came so that we might have life abundantly and wondered how much that statement, in fact, not only that statement but all these metaphors were meant for us to be experienced in the here and now rather than in some state of heavenly bliss in the future.

When Jesus said the path to life was narrow and few people find it I take that literally in the here and now. I literally picture a narrow band or edge that contains life and is difficult for most of us to find even as we perhaps believe correctly theologically. I picture a narrow gate or path, perhaps even hidden; “That place among the rocks, is it a cave or winding path, the edge is what I have”(Roethke).  I picture a narrow edge where, “Even here, though something can bloom, on a silent cliff edge an unknowing plant blooms, singing, into the air”, and how,  “If only we too could discover a pure, carved out,  human place, our own strip of fruit bearing soil between river and rock”. (Rilke). I think of the men of faith described in the book of Hebrews who lived “in cracks in the earth and holes in the ground”,  and somehow found a rich life in those edges even as they did not receive what was promised.

Do I have life? Am I truly alive in this faith I profess?  Where is my vitality? Do I experience the flowing rivers of living water from my innermost being?

Most often I do not experience these rich waters of life yet, perhaps the closest I come to such experiences occurs when I am standing thigh deep, in clear, cold waters of rivers that have carved their edges into the earth. And I think I get closer still when I am fly fishing these rivers, these edges,  with friends and sharing in that wonder and mystery. 

This past weekend I taught fly fishing to two friends in 11 mile Canyon. We found a narrow band of life as we found Rainbow and Brown Trout moving and feeding in the South Platte River. My friends learned the techniques of fly fishing quickly as we walked up and down that narrow carved out strip of fertile water and we found those fish willing to take our offerings of well presented flies. We briefly and gently held some of those fish in our hands before releasing them back into those living waters.

And, in some very real way, I think we found a narrow carved out edge of life.   

Fathers, Mothers, Sons and Daughters: Fly fishing as a Rite of passage

It seems that many of us have a sense that getting kids outdoors and doing activities such as fishing is a good thing. We may not agree why we think the outdoors and fly fishing can be beneficial to young people but there does seem to be a general consensus of, “Lets get kids outdoors”.

As a counselor, educator, father and fly fishing guide, I have thought about this topic for decades. My conclusion is that I think fly fishing can at least begin to be a component to a rite of passage for young people. Having observed young people for the past 30 years I have become convinced that some kind of a meaningful  rite of passage is needed in our culture to help young people move into adulthood. But I don’t think it is as simple as a father or mother hiring a guide for his son or daughter and making sure he/she catches a fish.

If a parent tries to guarantee that his child will catch a fish he is misunderstanding the process of a rite of passage and of an encounter with nature. Over the years of my guiding experience I have had this sort of thing happen quite often.  The father or mother  will pull me aside before the trip begins asking me (in so many words, some direct, others indirectly) to make sure their child gets hooked on fishing by catching a fish. The parent will stress, “The goal is for my child to catch a fish”, and often a parent might add, “He/she does not have a long attention span and if he/she does not catch something right away he/she will become bored and lose interest”.

A true journey and rite of passage has certain components that I believe are needed and one of those components is quite simply that there are no guarantees, or, at least not in regard to catching a fish. Nature is not under our control.  In the Bible when God finally spoke to Job out of the whirlwind I find His line of questioning very interesting. “Where were you when I laid down the foundations of the world? Tell me if you have understanding”. And then He goes on to question Job about the natural world that Job is not only ignorant about but also has no control over. “Have you ever commanded a single morning”?  “Who had begotten the dew”?  “Have you seen my storehouses of snow”? 

We cannot be afraid to have our children feel ignorant and not in control about certain things.  We cannot be afraid to allow them to fail. The self esteem movement has resulted in a sort of creed, “My kid must always feel good about himself”. I think this has gone way too far to the point where we always have to be holding our child’s hand.

Any heroic journey and rite of passage has a component of solo time. Many young people are rarely alone (And alone with cell phones, computer games and gadgets is not what I mean by alone time), that I think we need to do all we can to allow kids to be by themselves. Of course to ensure time alone, families are going to have to do some restructuring at home, setting strict limits and providing time outdoors.

I hope we can realize that ironically the period of being alone waiting to catch a fish is actually the time when some sort of a rite of passage can begin to take place. The young person learns and potentially is transformed by knowing that there are powers outside him/her self and that he/she is not in control. He/she learns that nature is more powerful. As the child tries to capture a fish he/she learns first hand that life is not all about him/her, that he/she is not the center of things and not entitled to anything. The fish can flat out ignore the young person’s attempts to entice them to bite.  This fact alone can be, in and of itself, transforming and a vital component of a rite of passage.

Perhaps it might be the best thing for a young person while fishing alone; thinking, pondering, problem solving, experimenting, to gaze at the sky around him/her; to then have a large Rainbow Trout slam the fly out of no where, peel off line faster than imaginable, and  leap through the air breaking the leader before the child can even guess what happened. And then the young person stands there decisively “defeated”, yet in awe, and bound and determined to try again. To me, that is closer to what it might mean for a young person to be “hooked on fishing”.