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.