Sunday, May 18, 2014

Commitment To a Mystery: Faith and Fly Fishing



There is much I do not understand about fly fishing and faith. 

I think we are correct to speak of what we do not understand as mystery. Better to admit what we do not understand. Better to ask the difficult questions. Why speak in absolutes if we do not understand? Why pretend?

Yet, even without understanding, there does come a time when I believe I must commit. I have enough information. I know enough even if most of what I know is simply that I do not know. It is still enough.

At some point I simply feel accountable to respond. I don’t think I should wait around for my rational mind to understand. Not going to happen. Enough has been revealed from a single sunrise on a river or the rise of a trout.

Faith will always to some degree require a leap of faith. So, does fly fishing. At some point we know enough and we cast. We cast to the depths and leap into a mystery.

I don’t have to know everything. In fact, I don’t have to understand very much at all. Perhaps all I need to know and understand is that I am accountable to respond. When I first started fly fishing I did not understand much at all but I responded.

This is my conclusion after decades of perceiving God as a mystery. I am quite certain that I will spend the rest of my life perceiving God as mystery. I may never purely understand a thing about the nature of God.

But I can still leap. I can still commit. I don’t’ leap or commit to understand.  I leap because it is the only true response.

An appropriate reverence.

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