Frog Rock: On The Way to the Platte; Restoring Authenticity in the Christian Church

The rock formation lies just off the north side of Highway 24 between the small towns of Divide and Florissant. I often point it out to my fishing clients on the way to fly fish the Platte or South Park’s Spinney and Antero Reservoirs. I have a friend who is a bit superstitious and every time he travels past on his way to fish, actually talks to the rock asking how the fishing will be.

The “frog” sits right on top of a large boulder about 30 meters north of the road. It looks like a “frog” ready to jump and viewers can clearly see what looks like it’s legs, body,  head, and face. For 30 years, I have noticed frog rock every time I drive by on my way to fish, ski or whatever.

Then, this past season, I noticed something different. Some one had painted it green. Someone must have dragged a ladder down there or rigged up a climbing rope and climbed up the boulder and painted the frog.

Of course, I did not like the paint job. Yet, I know there are worse things a group could have done as in Utah when a group of scouts knocked down a delicate rock formation in a park. Or, some one could have painted it orange or something stupid like that.  But, I still do not like it. In fact, it kind of reminds me of our need in this culture to fancy things up. It is not enough that nature carved this rock formation that really does look like a frog.

We fancy up a lot of things in our society. Of course this is done to help sell products or services or make us look better than we really are. Look at anyone’s face book or business website. The list goes on and on.  

I think where this fancying things up really bothers me the most is in the Christian church. I do not speak of all churches or ministers but it does seem that more and more are resorting to making faith more fashionable. Among other things, I am referring to the flashy, “light and music shows” and the “spiritual drama” used by many ministers, and the smoothie/coffee machines screaming and being offered to members during the service. Even the “one man show” can also be the churches way of using a charismatic individual, a professional speaker, to fancy things up to entertain the masses and bring in more people. More people means good business.   

Can anyone ever imagine it ever being another way? Could you imagine if churches actually had its members, ordinary lay people, participate and be the “center” of a service ?  Let them be the main show. Could you imagine having the members with all their brokenness and messiness be the focal point?  Oh no, it would be too boring and not fancied up enough.  It would not be much of a “show” to actually allow lay folks to express their thoughts, needs, insights and concerns. That would be far too slow.  Churches have to keep the pace up; keep up the hype. Keep everything on schedule as planned; keep the beat going.  And, why?  Well, we must remember people are more inclined to pay for good entertainment, a good show all fancied up.

The phrase “fancy it up” caught my attention years ago when I was rereading the  novel, “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury. In this futuristic society all books are burned. The government controls everything. It is illegal to have books in possession or in your home. The state does not want anyone to, “get any ideas”. Don’t dare be an individual; oh no!  Only mass conformity.  And one way to help that process of conformity is to take literature away from the masses. Take away poetry, Shakespeare, the classics. Take away the scriptures. Take away individual thought. Block out the thoughts of God.  Only ‘big brother’ is watching you and that is all that matters.

But in the novel as in real life there are always a few rebels. Guy Montag, a fireman, is such a rebel and he wants to preserve books instead of burning them as he once did. He wants to help print books again illegally and he is willing to risk his life for it.  

Late in the novel when Guy Montag has nothing to lose tells his mentor, Faber, another rebel in the story, “I can get books”. Faber replies, “You’re running a great risk”. Guy counters, “That’s the good part of dying; when you’ve nothing to lose, you run any risk you want”.  Faber is excited at Guy’s metaphorical insight and laughs, saying, “There, you’ve said an interesting thing without having read it”. Guy is curious, “Are things like that in books”?  “But it came off the top of my mind!” Faber brilliantly responds, “All the better. You didn’t fancy it up for me or anyone, even yourself”.

I love this!  I love this insight of realizing it is usually better to not fancy things up. It is better to not fancy things up for those we interact with, nor even for one self. Once we start thinking in terms of making something fancy, everything changes, and perhaps the purity of our message.

I can try not to be this person who compulsively has to fancy things up. I can try to live authentically with those in my own community. I can try to be sincere and more transparent. I can try to be authentic. All the better.

I can also only hope the church would value its members for offering up insights like Guy Montag.  Such insights could be all the better if we too learned to not fancy things  up.  I hope the ordinary individuals of churches can learn to stand up and offer up their vital authentic “un-fancied” perspectives within their church communities because these too, are “All the better”.

And I wish whoever painted Frog Rock would have left it alone. All the better.

Something Can Happen

"Many men go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not the fish they are after" (Thoreau).

When I go to the mountains, the river, the woods I get the feeling that “something” can happen.  I can’t say that is why I go. In fact, most of the time I am not looking for anything and nothing extraordinary happens. But something could.

I am past the age of being a thrill seeker looking for an adrenalin rush. I don’t need to ski off cliffs. I don’t need to catch the biggest fish or a certain number.  It is something else that I seek. In fact, the more I look for thrills or some number of fish that defines “success”, or even the more I look for  the “something”, the more it eludes me. Then, more than likely,  I  miss the “something”.

However, at least for me, I get the sense that this “something” that might happen will most likely occur when I visit wild places such as trout streams. I am quite certain that this something won’t happen while I am sitting on the couch watching TV and especially not while watching a football game.

So, I often go to the mountain, the river the woods. Most often nothing happens. But something could.  Therefore, maybe I can at least try to show up now and then.

Something could happen.

Fly Fishing On the Run: Pueblo's Arkansas River Tail-water

Today I fly fished along 13 miles of the Arkansas below Pueblo Dam. Technically it was only about half that distance as I ran an 'out and back' half marathon course this morning.  I was not really fly fishing. It was too cold: Temperature: 6 degrees with light misty snow.  

To pass the time, in my mind, I fly fish as I run. I am pretty good at picturing things. Fly fishing is not any different. Memories took my soul back to big rainbows hooked over the last several years in this river. I run over and under bridges following the “river walk” path looking for rising fish in the slower pools. I run from City Park up river past the deep run along the Honor Farm, past the nature center and then up and over the bridge below the dam.  I thought of big rainbows I had caught in the gauging station hole on pegged eggs and RS2”s after school on a  February late afternoon.  I then loop around and head back down river again toward the nature center. As I run, I think back to a big fish a client had on in the “Carp hole”  that broke my rod and how I had to run back to the nature center parking lot to my truck to get another rod. It was a 100 degrees that day and Waldo Canyon was burning out of control.  But here in the freezing mist every time I see  structure, a pile of rocks, or any number of habitat improvements,  I thought of fish; abundant fish;  if not hooked then beautiful fish laying  in the runs showing their colors and often ignoring my offerings.  I thought of clients I fished with, my daughters and a monster Brown we stalked, and dear friends. These images warm my heart but not my body.  The memories come and go with each mile marker of beautiful fish, holding in the runs and sometimes, huge fish hooked leaping out of the water in the movie of my mind.

I am awakened from my winter day dream by the sight of two runners I had finally caught up to in  the cold mist.  I stop casting and pick up the pace, in spite of my aged and dulled competitive edge,  to make a move past, one, and then the other. Now I hear people yelling at the finish line and as  I try to finish strong,  I also try  to maintain the hope that the river, in spite, of the fires and droughts and flooding and endless fishing pressure, will continue to hold its magnificent fish.

I know these memories are more than merely a winters’ day dream.  

After the Storm

In my last few posts I spoke of how I love being covered in the Gray of the forest. But today, after the storm, I also find  there is something beautiful  in the sun shinning on the bright new snow covering  the mountains with bright blue sky above.  Even as I love the gray, I must admit, I also love the return of  sun and the brightness of  blue skies and white snow. But I think, perhaps, best of all, my favorite, is a mix of  some blue skies,  white snow, gray clouds, fog and rays of sunlight angled through falling snow in the high peaks. "There's a certain slant of light, winter afternoons". Emily Dickinson.  Amazing to live in Colorado.

Loving the Gray Days: Enclosed in the Shadows of the Forest

There is something about the shadowy gray woods of winter. 

I feel drawn to the dim light of late afternoon,

away from the brightness, noise and lightness of the world.

This is the season when I shy away from all the silly happiness of bright days.

It is when I slip away for a few moments,

Into the calm, quiet, womb of the gray forest where everything has weight,

and everything has soul.  

I feel the weight of the forest, under me and above me.

Roots that spread deep in heavy soil hold me from beneath.

Dense trees, heavy with snow protect me overhead as a shield,

Overhanging branches laden with snow lean over me and the path.

Here I am enclosed.

Snow is falling through the trees;

Snow on snow, heaviness on heaviness,

Even the shadows cover me like a thick heavy blanket,

I am loved.

I am in a place where I feel my own weight,

and I know my soul is  more than what I am on  bright summer days.

This is a place where I know and feel,

The weight of God under the gray,

The weight of God in my soul. 

In this piece of prose, I tried to capture what I feel when I go into the woods and how I strangely feel protected and comforted in the seclusion of the forest. During such adventures, (in this case cross country skiing), I shy away from noise, brightness and lightness. In order for me to feel this "blanket" over me it has to  be during certain times of the year (Usually late November and December), and most often when it is late in the afternoon and snowing. The gray blanket closes down on me and I feel almost "held" in some mysterious manner. I doubt this feeling could ever happen while in front of a TV.  :)

"As If Standing on Fishes": Reluctant Fly Fishing Guide Journeys On A Wintry Gray Day

There is a part of me that has always been a bit paranoid about going on adventures. Most often there is a part of me that is somewhat scared especially when I travel alone; a feeling that something might go wrong and I will be stranded on the side of the road, get pulled down in a deep hole on the river or buried in an avalanche.  It is a sinking feeling, “as if I am standing on fishes” (Rilke).

This is a bit ironic because over the course of my life time, in spite of this sinking feeling,  I still manage to launch many solo journeys into the mountains. But before I go it often feels like a 50/50 chance I might just bag the plan. To get out the door, I have just a strong enough intuition to know that most often I have to rather abruptly, “just go”. I have to just take the first step and let go of the risks and fear. Sometimes I have to just quickly load up the truck and start down the road otherwise I will remain on the couch. And most often, or at least afterwards, it feels right to push through and go. “Moving Forward” as the poet Rilke says as the title of one of his poems.

So, on the first day of my Thanksgiving break I load up the SUV and head west up Ute pass in spite of overcast gray skies, ice packed roads, and a strong chance of snow. Oh, yes, how I wanted to use any thing for an excuse to not go. But I went even as “my feelings sank as if standing on fishes”.

Fear is a strange thing in a reluctant traveler like my self.  It makes me more observant. It makes me pay close attention to things. I look for signs of changing weather and icy roads.  I feel things deeply and strangely  as though I am in a hyper-sensitive state of awareness. .  And mysteriously, “I feel closer to what language cannot reach”, namely God.

I look for other signs. As I drive up the pass through the gray, I see a blue hole in sky. It is where I am going. I move forward. I feel more secure seeing a lake of blue in the sky opening up. “The deep parts of my life pour onward as if the river shores were opening out”.  I too open up as I move onward.

But then as I move forward, the hole in the sky closes off and disappears. I drop off again into the deep gray. “My feeling sinks as if I am standing on fishes”. Once again I feel I am on shaky ground and, indeed, a slippery road.

As I head through South Park and up Hoosier Pass, the snow deepens. I am surprised to see so much snow on the south side of the pass. Usually it dumps on the other side. Nothing is as predictable as I want it to be.  Such are adventures.  My wheels slip in 4 wheel drive. I think of the small snow shovel I brought just in case. I wonder to myself, “Should I have come”?

Where was I going? Was it to fish? To ski?  To spend some time alone?  To see? “To feel closer to what language cannot reach”? Maybe it was to simply get off the couch and push through the gray to a pond in the sky. 

“I climb into the windy heaven, out of the oak, and in the ponds broken off from the sky”.

And as I drop over the other side of the gray,  Still, “My feeling sinks as if standing on fishes”.

Still not sure I should have come.

What Color Is the Sky In Your World Where You Fish?

Well, for me, it depends. I kind of live in a bubble of my own.

I choose this bubble because for the most part I find our culture to be quite flat. Since I am a part of this culture I guess that flatness is also my fault. I am just not sure what to do about it. So, I often stay “inside” my bubble and insist the sky is the color that I see.

I find this inner world I often live in to be quite rich. It is most often quite richer than what lies outside me. It is different. In my bubble I see images from long past or from far ahead. They are preserved in my mind and heart. They remain.

I often wonder if others see the same images. I wonder what color the sky is in their world. I wonder if others have inner worlds of their own.

I know some poets who have the vision to speak of the importance of these inner images. As Rilke said, “The man who cannot quietly close his eyes certain that there is vision after vision inside, simply waiting until nighttime to rise all around him in darkness- its all over for him. Nothing else will come; no more days will open.”

To not see these internal images is to have only this world,; this flat culture we live in. In that sense, if this  is all we have, "it is all over".  As Christians we should have the richest collection of images because, at least in theory, we have "seen" some of the kingdom. "We came into this world trailing clouds of Glory", and those glorious images need us to remember them. 

Perhaps the images need us as much as we need them. The images need us to continue to hold on to them and reflect them in the world.  If we think this flat superficial Christian culture is all we have for our inner worlds; if this is all there is to the kingdom, then we have settled for a form of religion. In fact, we have settled for a very boring form of  religion.

These images I see before my heart give me hope.. They comfort me.  They are deep and loving companions. They promise to rise before me as long as I invite them, wondering if somewhere the sky is a deeper blue.

A deep, deep blue sky over the rivers I fish.

Casting Shadows On The South Platte River: Reeling in Projections

I remember thirty years ago my first adventures up into Cheesman Canyon. I quickly noticed how if I cast my shadow over the fish they were gone. Spooked.

Over the years I have done my share of spooking fish by carelessly projecting my shadow on to the waters I fish. I continue to do so. I have also done my share of casting shadows on people and have scared some folks away.

Projecting my own shadow on to others quite simply means I take what I don’t like or accept in myself and cast it on to someone else. Many of us are pretty good at this and we don’t even know we do it just as often times we don’t know why the fish have moved out of a particular run.

The Christian church (and I include myself), has done its share of projecting. We all have. Show me a group of any kind and chances are they project their disapproval on to others. What bothers me the most is not that the Christian church projects but rather we seem to largely be unaware about the issue in spite of some rather strong teachings from Jesus. Maybe this is because Christians are often paranoid of forms of psychology. Some times I get the feeling that if I were to start talking about casting shadows, projections or mention the name of Carl Jung that people would think I was being “unbiblical”.

Yet, ironically, I find no better argument on this topic than in what Jesus said. He spoke of first taking the log out of our own eyes so we can then see clearly. He spoke of the fact that when we judge others we will be judged with the same measure.

How could I be judged with the same exact measure? I have wondered what this verse really means.  I don’t think this verse means that God will personally judge me “back” or that people will judge me back with the same measure in which I judge others. That sounds too petty of God. Perhaps what it means is that the same measure will be used to judge myself because IT IS I WHO IS DOING THE JUDGING ON MYSELF WHEN I JUDGE SOMEONE ELSE.  I am really judging myself. I am really disliking myself. I am really disgusted with my self and I don’t even know it. But I am doing it with the ‘same measure’ because when I point my finger at you I am really pointing it at myself. It is in exact measure. Insult for insult; condemnation for condemnation.

In some sense I know this is not rocket science but why is it so difficult to pull back the projections. Why is it so difficult to reel it in? Why is it that 30 years later I am still casting shadows all over the place?

And why can’t I approach that pool with big rainbows laying on the bottom with out my shadow being cast all over the water?

We need a different approach. Anyone have any ideas?

Winter Enduring Foliage: One Season In Our Inner Year

 “Let my joyfully streaming face make me more radiant; let my hidden weeping arise and blossom. How dear you will be to me then, you nights of anguish. Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you, inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering, lose myself in your loosened hair.  How we squander our hours of pain. How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration to see if they have an end. Though they are really our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen, one season in our inner year, not only a season in time, but are place and settlement, foundation and soil and home.” Rilke

Last week I wrote about the melancholy nature of the Fall season and how at least for me is a time to allow myself to contemplate. It is a time to slow down and deal with some of the pain in life. It is a time to not “squander my hours of pain.”   It is a time to grieve over what I have lost. It is a time to consider my failures and disappointments. 

As I try to contemplate during this Fall season it occurs to me how difficult it is to do this  in our fast paced superficial culture that forever wants us to stay “positive.” It is almost impossible and men particularly are told they can never grieve. With our elder system largely dismantled, most of us have not been taught how to grieve. We lack a ritual to move us into and out of deep sadness.

Without such a ritual we are left to figure it out on our own or ignore our disappointments all together.   My guess is that many don’t even consider such a process and just “keep going”, living each day ‘outside’ their inner souls, cheering on their favorite football team, staying positive and keeping a perpetual smile. “I’m doing fine; thank you very much.”

Rilke powerfully speaks to this lost opportunity and how we often “squander our hours of pain”.  It describes how when pain or sadness enters our lives we just “gaze beyond them into the bitter duration to see if they have an end”.  My feeling is that “gazing beyond” is not the same thing as “going with” or “being with” one’s grief. It is not the same as what Robert Bly describes as “eating ashes.”

What do we lose by this squander? What do we lose by never deeply feeling and dealing with our grief?  All we have to is just look around at our culture and look within our hearts.  The poet suggests we will regret the lost opportunity, “How dear you will be to me then you nights of anguish"  for not tending to the development of the very foundation of our souls, . "Though they are really our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen, . . . but are place and settlement, foundation and soil and home.”

We need a ‘season’ to deal with our hours of pain so we can put on our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen, our place, settlement and home. Without such a season we will remain naked, thin and flimsy, wondering what happened to the foundation of our souls.

The great wind is coming. Time to put on our winter-enduring foliage.

Casting Out of Tune: Late Fall, Over-Taken.

There is something about the Fall season that pulls on me. The cool air, strange smells,  the changing color of leaves swirling on the ground. There is an “otherness” in the air that seems to grasp at me.  

Poets understand this otherness and grasping at the soul,

“We are grasped by what we cannot grasp”. Rilke

Robert Frost felt something tugging at his soul in his walk in a yellow woods on a Fall day as he lamented a path not taken. “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, sorry I could not travel both”.  

And  in another poem he describes the grasping as a pensive call to come in the woods,.

“Almost like a call to come in

To the dark and lament.”

Sometimes, the sounds of geese overhead seems to call to us. But often we are out of tune with this call, and late to respond,

“We are not in harmony, our blood does not forewarn us like migratory birds. Late, overtaken, we force ourselves abruptly onto the wind and fall to earth at some iced-over lake”. Rilke

Trying to fish on some iced-over lake late is a metaphorical indication that I might be forcing my way in life instead of being in harmony. I am abrupt rather than flowing with the seasons. I am trying to force fish to take the fly when there is no hatch. The fish are resting and recovering. Perhaps, I should let them be. Perhaps I should do the same.  I feel out of tune.

As Paul Simon wrote, “Like a poem poorly written, we are verses out of rhyme”.  Sometimes I fish like a “poem poorly written, and like a verse out of rhyme”. I am not timing my casts. I am just casting and casting aimlessly.  I’m not even sure I should be there. Perhaps, this is what I need to lament;  To know how out of tune I am.

Perhaps for me the Fall is a time to be metaphorically alone. For me, late fall no longer feels like a call to be grasping at fish but it is more a time for restless contemplation. A time to wander;

“Whoever is alone will stay alone,
will sit, read, write long letters through the evening,
and wander along the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing”. Rilke

With our rivers that have been over fished all summer long, perhaps it is time to give it a rest. Time for the shadows to lay over places like the Dream Stream and Eleven Mile Canyon and Deckers.

“Lord: it is time. The huge summer has gone by.
Now overlap the sundials with your shadows,
and on the meadows let the wind go free”.  

Let the winds bring snow and a message on the wind that helps me be in tune with the greater "otherness" of my life. 

Fitting Others Into Patterns: Judging

Fitting others into patterns can be another manner in which community life is destroyed. A while back my friend David Weddle and I were driving home from fishing.  I was sharing a poem with him about community life by William Stafford (see earlier post on community life). I was reciting the lines,

“If you don’t know the kind of person that I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are then a pattern that others made in the world may prevail”.

David said, “Say that last part again”. I repeated, “A pattern that others made in the world may prevail”.

David shared with me a valuable insight and  the significance of those lines as it relates to community life. He talked about “patterns that others have made” or what we call stereotypes. He talked about “Categories” or “patterns” that we “fit” people in to because we really do not know them. I could see how I have done this with people and how it is hurtful

“If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are”,  is the beginning of the problem.  If we really don’t know each other then we are prone to judge and be judged. It is quite easy to do this if we really do not know the person we are putting in to a pattern. We just assume the person matches the pattern, a pattern that others have made.  And it is far easier to superficially match patterns based on past data, rather than get to know someone deeply.

Perhaps, as Christians we could take this a step further. As Christians we should know each other, or at least begin to know each other in the deeper sense of who we are in God. We should know each other as individuals with unique gifts and life experiences, but sadly even in church we rarely know each other at a deep level.  As the poet says, more often, "The parade of our mutual life gets lost in the dark", And no real community can be established. .

We judge others. I judge others. It happens often. If a group of people who do not know each other share what they do for a living, often people are categorized into a pattern or stereotype. The words: Lawyer, doctor, teacher,  preacher, professor, carpenter, business man, fly fishing guide, all can form images in the minds of listeners. We then might then think we know a pattern. We then categorize.

We even judge other fly fishers. We say things like, “He does not know what he is doing. He can’t cast. He only uses San Juan worms or egg patterns. He can’t use a dry fly. He fishes the same hole every time, (or ‘God forbid’), he uses bait and eats his fish”.

We even judge others for being judgmental. We think we  see a pattern and we just assume that a  person is judgmental.

What is strange is that we tend to think of our judgments and “categories” as being uniquely our own insight into the character of others. We think putting people into these patterns is a reflection of our own individualistic and independent wisdom. This leads to a certain sense of pride and smugness even though the reality is that often someone else made the pattern. Remember the words of the poet suggest we merely follow, “as elephants parade holding each elephants tail; . . . a pattern that others made may prevail” and “following the wrong god home we may miss our star.”

We see in the Gospels how Jesus was judged and “pattern-ized.”  If he was seen eating with the “wrong” people they put him into a category. He, more than anyone, knew the pain of not being known and misunderstood.  Strange how none of those patterns or categories fit him because he did not match any known pattern on Earth.

.

And because we are at least in some small way,  “in God”, the patterns we think we see in others really don’t match either. As soon as we try to fit someone into a pattern or stereotype seemingly out of no where some thing from beyond the pattern rises as from a far off land  or as a trout rises, and we are pleasantly surprised and proved to be wrong.   

Fly Fishing Experts: How to Catch More and Bigger Fish?

Not really.

We live in a society where we practically worship gurus. It’s not really their fault. We prop them up. We prop them up in many areas of life. I hear of them in fly fishing, sports, fitness and finance and education. I hear about them on how to live the spiritual life. I hear about them in regard to how to catch more and bigger fish.

 I wonder why we do this propping up and putting folks on stage.  It is almost as though we have a neurotic need for gurus. We sit in workshops and classes and in church pews taking notes and listening to their every word. I guess I have grown skeptical of it all.

In contrast to guru idolization, I love the message of a rather cynical poem by Charles Bukowski titled “The Secret”.  In the poem he assures us that no one is really all that special and magical.

“Nobody has the strange and hidden power, Nobody is exceptional or wonderful or magic, they only seem to be. It’s all a trick, an in, a con, don’t buy it, don’t believe it” 

Maybe this idolization of gurus is symptomatic of the “Sibling Society” we now live in as described by Robert Bly (Sibling Society, 1996 Bly). If we are a bunch of little immature kids all competing for recognition and immediate gratification then the idea of having gurus fits in nicely. We blindly welcome this idolization of gurus because we think they will give us the edge over the other squabbling siblings.

In fly fishing, we think that the guru will show us magically how to catch more or bigger fish all the time. Just like magic.

In the spiritual life there is always some guru offering some new way to always be happy or blessed or fulfilled or on how to live a victorious life.  

Bly also describes this sibling society as one that “participates in more and more nonevents”.  A guru announces that he is speaking on how to catch more trout or bigger trout and the masses show up. But most often, it is another ‘non event.’ Nothing new or magical is presented.

In the field of education I wish I had a dollar for every workshop, taught by some expert, that I had to sit through on some new way to teach. Maybe I could have retired a few years earlier.

Perhaps in the end this is what the fly fishing and the spiritual life have in common. There is no magic. No one really has it all figured out whether it be about life or fly fishing. The truth is that we really don’t know a whole lot.  And on any given day we can find ourselves stripped of everything and overwhelmingly stumped. Completely humbled.  Fishless. Spiritually, financially and emotionally bankrupted.

There are no gurus. There are no guides.  Not really. At least not in the way we most often think.

Bukowski concludes his poem with this final thought.

“There are no strong men, . . . at least you can die knowing this and you will have the only possible victory”.

Educational Meander: How to Paint A Donkey? Unfolding Individuality in Teaching

This poem, “How to Paint a Donkey”, by Naomi Shihab Nye, describes an emotionally hurt child who could not paint a donkey pleasing to her teacher.

She said the head was too large,

The hooves too small,

I could clean my paintbrush,

But I couldn’t get rid of that voice,

While they watched,

I crumbled him,

Let his blue body stain my hand,

I cried when he hit the can.

She smiled, I could try again.

Maybe this is what I unfold in the dark,

Deciding for the rest of my life,

The donkey was just the right size.

The child heard the criticism of her teacher…

“She said the head was too large. The hooves too small”.

And as a result, she throws the painting away,

“I crumbled him.

Let his blue body stain my hand,

I cried when he hit the can”.

We can feel how personal this donkey was to this child. But it was not acceptable.

We are aware of the stereotype of the insensitive teacher being too critical of children but perhaps we are at a time when it is teachers who feel criticized for the way they teach. Many teachers are discouraged. In one way or another they are often being told that there is only one way to teach and their own personal way is not good enough. ~There is pressure to conform. ~As a result their own personalized art of teaching they once loved and embraced is being crumbled up and thrown in the can. ~

I don’t think we fully realize how if the vast majority of teachers have to conform to one style we are disempowering them of their passion, their gifts and their sense of belonging. We cannot continue to throw aside the unique personhood and style of the teacher.

What can we do?  Like the child in the poem, maybe we can find a quiet place in the dark and “unfold” what we have crumbled up and canned. We need to grieve over what we have thrown away and decide for the rest of our teaching career that our donkey was just the right size.

Lost On the River

But sometimes, lost
on his way to somewhere significant,
a man in a long coat, carrying
a briefcase, wanders into the forest.

He hears the voice,  . . .
he sees the thrush and the dandelion,
and feels the mist rise over the river.

And his life is never the same,
for this having been lost –
for having strayed
from the path of his routine,
for no good reason.

Michael Blumenthal, “A Man Lost By a River"

Dante spoke of awakening in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost. This is the paradox of becoming lost but awakening, of being lost but of being found.  Jesus said he came to find the lost.

I think I was better at being lost when I was a kid than I am now as an adult. I would wander the hills fishing little ponds looking for bass. Some times I would get a bit lost looking for a way to fish someone’s private pond or I remember sneaking into reservoirs at night crawling under troublesome fences. Sometimes, in the darkness, I got lost trying to get back out.

In those moments of feeling lost, I don’t remember feeling fear or as though I was wasting time. It was all part of the adventure. I did not have to hurry up and get to a meeting as I do now. Maybe as a kid it was easier to find that different pace Thoreau spoke of and hear the beat of a different drummer.

As an adult, I now have to carry a brief case and wear a long coat. I don’t know if I could crawl under that fence with out that briefcase or the coat getting snagged on the wire. I don’t  know if I could stray from the path of my routine for no good reason. Now I have to stay on task, be responsible and "successful". 

I get the feeling that I am not alone in this and that perhaps many adults don’t know how to get lost anymore. It is as though there is not any  time to stray. One cannot afford to get off the main road.

So I ask myself. Can I put my brief case down?  Do I know how to get lost anymore?   Can I still wander the hills ?  Can I still wander into the forest and feel the mist rise over the river?

And if I could still stray from the routine, would my life never be the same for this having been lost?

Could I become lost so as to be  found?

Fly Fishing On Uncertain Terms

It doesn’t really matter what the arena is; The job,  fly fishing, sports, debating politics, teaching, or dealing with complicated moral  religious issues, I have often been perplexed by the certainty I see expressed in others. There seems to be little doubt.

I don’t know if I missed a seminar somewhere on positive thinking, self confidence or self esteem. Or, maybe it was a class on how to always know the absolute one way to live life and always catch fish.

When it comes to fly fishing (and for that matter many areas of life) it often feels as though it is a “toss up” whether I will catch the fish I am stalking. It also feels like a toss up if I am offering the right advice to a client I may be guiding or a friend I may be offering counsel.

Maybe it is an illusion, but often when I talk to others I get the feeling they sound so much more certain. . This seems to be particularly true if one is offering a service or selling a product of some kind. We seem to be getting the message that one better come across as certain or people will lose their confidence in you and what you are offering. But there is something that seems inauthentic about always being so confident.

Ironically, I find some comfort when I hear uncertainty in the voices of those I interact. In fact, I am far more comfortable and trusting being around people who are less certain. I get particularly uneasy when people confidently start pontificating what God’s will is.

In regard to faith, I think our uncertainty and our doubting can be an indication that our faith is more authentic and reverent. But, often, I guess I am not even certain of the value of my doubting.

During an evening church service, minister and friend Dave Shaw shared with us some thoughts about reverence. This theme of certainty and uncertainty and knowing or not knowing God’s will was at the core of the discussion. We seemed to share the idea that proper reverence of what God’s will might be has some level of uncertainty. And in a sense this admitting of uncertainty is reverence.

We ended the evening when Dave shared some words by Abraham Lincoln while he was struggling with some very tough religious moral issues of his day.

“They come to me and talk about God’s will …

Day after day, laymen and ministers , . .  

Defining me, God’s will…

But all of them are sure they know God’s will,

I am the only one who does not know it.

And yet if it is probably that God

Should, and so very clearly state His will

To Others, on a point of my own duty, It might be thought He would reveal it to me

Directly, more especially as I

So earnestly desire to know his will”

( Paraphrase by Stephen Vincent Benet in “John Brown’s Body”)

And those words strangely help me feel better about not being so confident in myself. 

Brutal Facts: Calling It Like It Is. Honesty In Guiding and Communities

Sometimes when you are fly fishing and you make a bad cast it is better to just call it what is. Something like, “Well, that’s not even close. That was terrible”. Or, sometimes with some sarcasm you might say, “Nice cast you only missed by 20 feet”. Then regroup and try again knowing the brutal fact of how badly you messed it up.

I remember years ago reading the quote from Jim Collins. He said, “First, we have to look at the brutal facts”. I like this idea.  There is something about direct brutal honesty in regard to where we are at that is “clean” and powerful. Call it like it is.  We can grow from such honesty.

Besides poking fun of myself when I make a bad cast or do something stupid in life, I even sometimes say such “brutal” things to my clients. “Now, what were you thinking when you slapped the line and fly on the water”? We laugh. Often such honesty is appreciated and trusted but of course like most things in life, discretion has to be used.  And jokingly casting such brutal facts is also a bit of an art similar to the art of delicately landing a dry fly above a trout in shallow clear water. 

I find that often in life instead of being honest and direct we dance around the truth. Consider the corporate work world. David Whyte in, “The Heart Aroused” describes how a friend working for a big corporation had to respond to a presentation by an important CEO. Everyone in the room had to cast a number from 0-10 on what they thought of the proposed plan. So, they went around the room. One by one, each person gave the proposal a ten even though everyone knew this project was a zero. His friend listened and considered the proposal.  In his heart he knew this plan would not work. It came time for him to cast his vote and like a little mouse he squeaked out, “ten”. 

We waste a lot of time squeaking like mice.

Often when it comes to our families and communities we don’t say what we really think. Many church communities are particularly good at pretending. The poet William Stafford calls such pretending cruel,

“Although we can fool each other we should consider” . . .

 “I consider it cruel and perhaps the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact”. 

We pretend we don’t see the fact. We know what occurs but we don’t recognize it as a brutal fact. Such pretending only makes for a rather cruel situation as we remain lost in the dark. The power of the individual and his possible role and contribution to the community is lost.

1984 Fly Fishing; How Good Was The Fishing On The South Platte's 'Dream Stream' ?

 In George Orwell’s “1984” novel describing a dystopian society the main character Winston Smith is fascinated with what the past was really like. In his society all historical records have been fabricated and altered so he does not know what is true and what is propaganda.  Yet, Winston has “some kind of ancestral memory” of life being different and through out the story he seeks to know the truth.

In the novel, Winston seeks out an older gentleman and says, “You are very much older that I am. You must have been a grown man before I was born. You can remember what it was like in the old days. People of my age don’t really know anything about those times. We can only read about them in books, and what it says in the books may not be true. I should like your opinion on that”. 

As much as I hate to admit it, I am now one  of those older gentlemen who remembers what the fishing was like back in “1984”, or, if not specifically1984, then at least during  the 80’s and 90’s . And like Winston I too am seeking the opinion of others who may remember.

I can say with relative certainty that I have not seen the 'dream stream' as good as it was in those early years. Every run and riffle had dozens of large fish rising to tricos, caddis, PMD’s and midges. During the trico hatches it seemed as though the whole river was covered with hundreds and hundreds of rises. I don’t think I am distorting the past. I am sad as I remember. And I wonder what went wrong.   

As I lament the “good old days” for the dream stream I also think about what I can learn from this loss. Perhaps the most important issue is to know that there are no guarantees in regard to any high quality trout fishery. Just because a fishery is catch and release does not mean it will last forever. Tremendous pressure is placed upon our high quality waters.  While I do believe catch and release is our present day best solution and strategy for helping maintain a high quality fishery it is not the perfect solution. In my opinion more is needed to relieve the fishing pressure from the masses of fly fishers who hook and handle fish every day on such a river as the dream stream.

What can we do?  I think the first thing we need to do is to remember and lament what we lost.  Like Winston in 1984,  I ask older folks what they remember. What do you remember about the dream stream?  Then and only then can we figure out a way to bring it back.

Twenty Minutes

William Butler Yates describes in prose how for twenty minutes he felt overwhelming happiness. He felt it in his body while on the street he gazed;

My body of a sudden blazed;

And twenty minutes more or less

It seemed so great my happiness.

The poet waits 50 plus years to feel such happiness and apparently it came out of almost nowhere. It was while sitting alone in a crowded shop with an empty cup and open book and looking down the street.

“My fiftieth year had come and gone

I sat a solitary man,

In a crowded London shop,

An open book and empty cup

On the marble table top.”

The happiness was of such a great intensity that his “body blazed” and gave him the awareness that he could now bless others. There was something different about this happiness experienced. It was more than merely, “having fun” or merely “being happy” or being grateful or even being joyful. He felt blessed to the point that he then wanted to bless others.

Perhaps it is most interesting  that he describes this blaze of awareness taking place for only “Twenty minutes”. I immediately want to ask, “Huh. That’s it?  For twenty minutes”? You waited 50 years for twenty minutes of happiness?

“Why only twenty minutes”?  

And to complicate matters even more, I don’t think the poet means twenty minutes a day or a week or a month or even a year. I think in regard to a  blaze of happiness that can  then be a true blessing to others he means twenty minutes for his life time.

So, now as a reader you may want to ask, “Are you saying that we are only granted twenty minutes of happiness in our life time”?

To which I would have to answer, “Perhaps; Or, at least perhaps  for this type of happiness.”

When I honestly examine my own life of 50 plus years (as my fiftieth year has also come and gone), I would have to agree with the poet. It has been about twenty minutes of feeling that blaze.

There have been those moments of blaze, sometimes when  I have taught a young person to catch a trout for the first time and it was a blessing for both of us.  Twenty minutes. 

Unexplainable Common Ground On the South Platte River

“Do you fold your pizza”,  my client Jerry asked me as he was trying to get a good drift with his tiny dry fly?  He had spent a good part of his life in N.Y.   I had just let him know that I grew up in New Jersey and how I sometimes missed good pizza. So we talked about thin crust N.Y style pizza in contrast to doughy pizza.

We immediately had common ground.

I found the question a bit humorous. Here we were with his son standing in the middle of the South Platte River in Eleven Mile Canyon, trico mayflies and BWO’s  were all over the river, and fish were rising everywhere.   We were trying to tackle one of the most artistic and technical aspects of fly fishing: The presentation of the dry fly; a delicate task that demands all of our engagement and skill.  And he asks me if I fold my pizza.

I thought of the questions many of my beginner clients of the past ask me during such a hatch. Questions such as;  “So, how long do these mayflies live”?   Or, “How do the fish see such small flies”?  Or, “How am I suppose to see the fly”. Or, “How can you even see that thing to tie it on”? Or, time and time again, I hear, “I drifted the fly right over the fish why did he ignore it”?

Just then his son Robert yelled up from down stream that he had another one on. And he did, a nice Brown that was peeling out line and heading downstream over boulders.

Some where in the middle of this discussion on pizza Jerry caught a nice fish on a black and white parachute trico, and then another and another. And Robert got several more. Somewhere in between netting fish,  we also found out that we shared a common faith.

More common ground:  We shared in the common experience of how to delicately lay a tiny dry fly over a trout with a down and across ‘reach mend” cast and watch the fish rise. Surely, this is one of the marvels of fly fishing and requires a hope that is not so explainable.

The marvel of catching a rainbow or brown trout on a tiny dry fly is one of those things that simply cannot be explained. It has to be experienced in the same way that a perfect slice of pizza has to be folded.

Finally, I just told Jerry, “Of course I fold my pizza”.  

Don’t ask me to explain.

Funny how some times the simple things bond us and makes me feel “back home” or perhaps already  in the “home to come.”

Cheesman Canyon Challenge: Fishing Edges

While my client Bob and I were walking the gill trail to drop into Cheesman Canyon he said, “It is worth it just to come here and walk this trail and see the river below”.  It was a beautiful image indeed; Walking on the narrow trail along the edge of the canyon with the boulder spewed river below glistening in the morning light. 

I was somewhat relieved by Bob’s comment thinking in my mind, “Well, if we don’t do very well fishing at least he is enjoying the scenery”,  knowing that Cheesman Canyon can be tough and  a bit less predictable in terms of success. I have had good fly fishing buddies of mine get skunked in the canyon or sometimes just  get a fish or two in the net. I had no idea how Bob and I were going to do.

Bob had fished the South Platte before. He had fished 11 mile quite often and done well. He was looking for a greater challenge. “I would like a chance at some bigger fish. I would like to try Cheesman”, he said. . He wanted the Cheesman challenge and was willing to take the risk.  

I knew I couldn’t back down from the challenge. We were committed.  

As I often do when I venture into Cheeseman I tried to prep Bob saying,  “These fish are as wild as trout get in the West. No stocking is done here. The Canyon has a self sustaining population of rainbows and browns that have survived for decades. These are fish that have survived the fires and mudslides, floods and droughts, and thousands upon thousands of fishermen trying to hook them.  They are wary. They are tough. They are educated. They have seen it all. We will have to work for them.”

When I think of what makes Cheesman trout so tough to catch is how they live on the edges. It seems these fish live on the edges even more so than trout in other places. These fish love to hide and feed on seam lines. They love those edges where two different current speeds and often two different depths lay side by side and form a “line”, a “seam line, an edge.   It seems to me that I  just don’t catch that many fish right in the middle of the main runs. They want to be on an edge and so I knew Bob would have to find good natural drifts on those seam lines.

We started working in the upper “ice box” hole. Then quickly, a rare event for Cheesman Canyon; Bob hooked a large Rainbow on his third cast. The fish was right where we knew it would be; on a seam line. The fish went catapulting down river before throwing the size 24 sparkle wing RS2. Bob asked, “What did I do wrong? What could I have done”?  I said, “Nothing, this is what makes this place so wonderful and challenging”.  And it was.

We worked both sides of the “Ice box” hole moving up and down, across and back again. We rested fish and came back to them. We worked on good drifts and good high stick nymphing techniques. We hit those seem lines hard and were rewarded with a good number of fish hooked, fought and landed and just as many lost. We fished the edges and also at times dared to add more weight to get the fly down. I explained how that is another “edge” one has to approach in the canyon. You have to be willing to take a chance and risk hanging up in order to hook fish. And it seemed that every time we added a tiny bit more of weight we hooked up.

The rainbows and Browns took mainly the RS2 but we also took 3 fish on the brown San Juan worm. We also took a few on a black midge that was probably taken as a trico as there were fish actively feeding on tricos. At times the fishing seemed to go dead only to turn on again.

It was a wonderful day and I was thankful for being able to take the chance with Bob to fish the edges of Cheesman canyon.