Following the Wrong Elephant: A Few Thoughts On Church Life

William Stafford’s poem on community life, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”, among other things, warns us about following the wrong guru.  If we hold on to the tail of an elephant  that has gone off the path, then, “the circus won’t find the park” and “we may miss our star”, because we, “followed the wrong god home”, and “allowed a pattern that others made prevail”. 

This can easily happen in church communities where we tend to prop guru’s up in high places. This can also easily happen as a community if we don’t really know and value each other and the individual members do not have a voice. Instead we give all authority to one voice.

“If you don’t know the kind of person that I am and you don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail and following the wrong god home we may miss out star”. 

“Following the wrong god home”, can mean many things. Churches can follow mainstream cultural themes such as the god of money, numbers, size, or celebrity worship instead of listening to the voice and life with in its community members.  Romans Chapter 12 clearly states we are all needed and we all have our own voice. We all have our gift to offer up and that we should not conform to patterns of the world. We should be counter cultural because our roots are in God, not the culture.

Sadly, many churches are structured in a way that there is the idolization of one man. This is the head preacher or minister.  People come to hear him speak. People come to hold his tail.

This is not an issue of this head elephant not being gifted or not speaking the word of God. But rather it is the issue that there are lots of other members in the community who are largely passive and should have a voice.

Maybe we would be better off to hold on to each others tails instead of the one that is all dolled up for the circus.

I know the same thing happens in fly fishing communities. We prop people up. We listen only to him.  Yet, I have found the most useful information coming from “ordinary” fly fishers of my community, who are just out there fishing and catching fish.  And they really know something.

Fishing After School: Chasing Childhood Images on Pueblo's Arkansas River Tail-Water

“Oh childhood, O images slipping from us. Whither Whither?”  Rilke

Fishing after school brings back memories. As a kid, I would rush home, grab my fly rod and rush up to a private pond that was loaded with Largemouth Bass. Back then, I only carried a fly rod and kept in my pocket an extra white marabou streamer. No vest. No waders. Not even an extra leader.

This past week, after school, I drove down to Pueblo’s Arkansas River. Of course I am no longer a student but rather I am an educator. Yet I felt some of that old excitement of being a child and looking for big fish. Some things never change. And some things do.

I now carry a lot of equipment. Too much perhaps.  I was geared up with two rigged fly rods, my vest stuffed with fly boxes containing thousands and thousands of flies and numerous pieces of tackle, leaders and tools and gadgets.  And of course I had waders. How different from fishing during the simplicity of childhood when I only wore shorts and sneakers.

The big rainbows were there. I could see them just as I could see big bass in the shallows of the pond I fished as a kid.  My eye sight is still good.  In certain ways sight casting to bass was similar to casting to rainbows.  Spot the fish, put the fly in front of the fish. I didn’t need the extra tackle. Extra tackle does not help the eyes. I caught several large bows 19-22 inches and several smaller fish. As is most often the case, I missed many. It didn’t matter.

I only fished two hours. I accomplished what I had hoped for and brought something back unexpected.  Something from long ago, a deep and loving memory of being a child on a  late sunny afternoon walking a pond stalking fish with seeing eyes, hope in my heart and fly line looping over head toward the skies.  

Oh images, do not slip away.  

Pueblo Arkansas River Tail-water Rainbows: Making Delays, Slowing Down

I had a wonderful time today on the Ark in Pueblo. It was relatively warm. I did not leave home until 10:45am which is unusual for me. I went solo and enjoyed the solitude and going at my own pace. It was peaceful to not rush or care about much of anything. I don't like it when I get into that rush mode of thinking I have to find a good spot or I have to catch a lot of fish or the person I am with has to catch fish. Today, my attitude was, "Who cares"?

I thought of some lines of poetry; a poem titled "Waiting".

"I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace"?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
What is mine shall know my face."

And so even as I was slowing down I caught some big fish. And it was wonderful.

How Do We Completely Understand Such Beauty: Arkansas River Rainbows

Without Complete Understanding

This morning I heard the Reverend David Shaw of “The Church In The Wildwood”,  in Green Mountain Falls speak about the novel, “A River Runs Through It”. David pointed out that toward the end of the novel, the author, Norman Maclean, remembering  his father, the Reverend Maclean, deliver one of his last sermons with  two moving quotes.  David Shaw touched on these themes this morning in his own sermon.

“It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us”.

”But, you can love completely with out complete understanding”.

Reverend Dave Shaw simply shared with us with honest humility that there is much he does not completely understand. There is much that eludes him and us. How refreshing! We cannot completely understand how Jesus can raise Lazarus and bring new life to those he touches. We cannot completely understand so much of life: its beauty as well as the ugliness and brokenness. Ironically, I find such honesty far more reverent of God than those who seem to always know.

“But we can still love completely”, or at least that is our hope. 

There is much I don’t understand while fly fishing: the beauty of the river or of a rainbow trout arching out of the water showing its beautiful colors. How can I understand such beauty completely?

“In the open mindedness of not knowing enough about anything;  It was beautiful”  Mary Oliver

An Appeal for Community Life

William Stafford, in his poem titled, “A Ritual to Read Each Other”, offers a suggestion to help keep community life flowing at a meaningful depth.  His suggestion is quite simple: Learn to talk to one another to a depth.  In the 4^th stanza of the poem he makes his appeal.

“And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider-

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.”

The appeal made is an earnest request and call to be heard and to know others at a soulful level.

The opening lines of the poem asks us to know ourselves and others, “If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are",then, it seems we may fail to arrive as a community. In essence we will fail to be a community.

Perhaps we can apply this poem to church communities.   We can see it as an appeal for each individual to “Speak the truth in love”.  The poem appeals to us to speak to the deeper aspects of our souls;   to speak from and to the, “shadowy, remote important regions”, those places we tend to hide in the shadows.  It is an appeal for authentic dialogue at the level of the soul.

The appeal to soul talk is proposed in contrast to fooling each other with shallow surface babble. Sadly, often church communities are “good” at producing a lot of religious surface babble. “Though we could fool each other we should consider.”  Consider what? We should consider the fact that if we fool one another we “may miss our star”;  “a fragile sequence may break”,  “our mutual life may get lost in the dark”, and we may fall “asleep”.

We should consider- because “the darkness around us is deep”.  

To Cast or Not to Cast? Trying Not to Cast to Big Rainbows on Pueblo's Arkanasas River Tailwater

I fished the Arkansas yesterday and some of those huge rainbows are moving around in the shallows showing their broad sides and beautiful colors. It is spawning time on our rivers. Do we cast to them?  Or do we leave them alone?

I listen to fishing discussions on this topic quite frequently where we try to justify casting to these monsters. Comments such as : “They already spawned”, or, “They are only staging. They are not spawning yet”. Or “The fish was not on the redd,  it was behind it, (or in front of it). Or, “I saw the fish feeding on midges, it was not spawning”;  and on and on.

Truth be told, I am not sure any of these possibilities has any merit or gives us justification. We can say whatever we want but by casting we are messing with these fish. How much we are messing with these fish and what harm is done is difficult to determine.

Even if we admit we are messing with these fish it is still not easy to “not cast”. I do not stand or speak from a high place. I know.  

There is also the ethical issue of considering how hard is it really to get those fish to take a fly when one places the fly on its nose?  Not very hard in my opinion. It is way more challenging to get even a 12 inch fish to take a trico dry fly.

Does it matter if I  mention where they are “staging”?    There are not any secret spots on the Arkansas. Anyone can find them.  It is beautiful to watch huge rainbows laying in a run. And it is wonderful to just know they are there. But to cast? 

My friend Steve Gossage at Covey once told me a story of fishing on a section of river several years back where he spotted a 36 inch rainbow lying on a redd as clear as a rainbow in the sky. The person he was fishing with said to Steve, “Go ahead, cast to it. He will eat it”.

Steve walked away.

Wow! I wish I could be like Steve.