Speaking From the Edge To Those On the Edge: A Reasonable Request For Dialogue

If our Christian faith teaches us anything at all it teaches us that real dialogue should or could be restored. We should be able to talk to one another. We should be able to talk to one another about what we honestly experience. We should be able to talk with depth with one another. Yet, often this is not the case.

If we feel as though we are on some edge and we express what that edge feels like I would hope there are folks out there or in my life who understand that feeling and feel the sharpness of that edge.

If we feel misunderstood we should be able to talk with one another about that misunderstanding with out it being a big ordeal; without being labeled or judged as being “off”, crazy, negative or lacking faith. In other words, if we feel misunderstood there should or could be people in our lives who have felt this pain to a common level that they get it and they help us out of our own self pity.   

If we share with others a general feeling of being alone even as we live and breathe with friends and family and belong to different groups, hopefully there are those in our lives who can join in and share in our loneliness and our “not-at-home-ness”.

If we feel as though we belong in another world and this present world does not make much sense, then I would hope we could talk about those feelings and try to understand, together, why that feeling just might be true.  Ironically, that feeling of some deep homesickness could be our common ground as “He, (God) is the great homesickness we never shake off.” Rilke.

If we feel tired of trying to play a game that really does not resonate with our souls we should be able to talk about that uneasiness and perhaps together, as small communities, we can agree where, how and to what extent we are to engage in the world and yet be salt to the world.

Lamenting about the fact that we live on this edge could be a common experience among those of us who believe.  Jesus spoke of the blessed ones as being those who mourn. In fact, grief could be the foundation of our spiritual experience with one another. Rilke the poet understood how we waste the opportunity to grow from pain and yet it could be our foundation with one another, “How we squander our hours of pain …though they are really our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen, one season in our inner year-, not only a season in time-, but our place and settlement and soil and home”.

If we feel as though “it has been our lifelong longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we feel cut off” and that we have “always wanted to be on the inside of some door we have only seen from the outside” then we need to know that this is “no mere neurotic fantasy but the truest index of our real situation,” (C.S. Lewis) then we should be able to talk about that feeling of being on the outside of some place at such a depth that the very place we stand together, even on a narrow edge, is a place of togetherness, foundation, community and “home”.   

I choose to experience what I experience as what I experience without trying to change that experience just because it is lonely or difficult. I don’t want to distort my experience because if I do, I may be distorting reality itself and the truth of our real predicament and others who might be feeling the same experience and trying to find such a community, will not be able to find  their way “home’. .  

I put forth this reasonable request for dialogue. Anybody out there on the edge? Anybody  want to talk about it?  We can stand together on one of those narrow carved out places we call rivers.

Christian Men's Fly Fishing Group: Embracing the Messy Edge Areas of Our Lives

In the old Iron John tale a beast is hauled up out of a swamp and put in a cage. The cage is moved into the court yard of a castle for all to see. The beast is all locked up and named Iron John. .

One day a young boy is playing with his golden ball. The ball accidentally rolls near the cage. Iron John picks up the ball. The boy approaches the cage and asks for his ball back. Iron John says, “Not unless you let me out of the cage”.

Robert Bly, in his book “Iron John: A Book About Men”, comments that the golden ball represents a radiance and wholeness that we lost at various points of our life. Some of those significant losses took place when we were quite young and we probably were not aware of the loss. Then, often men unconsciously spend the rest of their lives trying to get the golden ball back and of course, looking in all the wrong places.

Bly comments that the first step in getting the ball back is, “To accept firmly, definitely- that the ball has been lost.” To take this first step is not that easy for many men. It requires honesty. It requires self awareness. It requires paying attention to one’s feelings.

It requires vulnerability.

Some Christian men have done some wonderful work authentically paying attention to their own brokenness and looking to Christ for wholeness.  I too embrace this truth. Yet, sometimes I get the feeling that we think we just need to fall on our knees one time and ask for forgiveness that we will then be automatically whole again. Life will be wonderful and golden all the time and the blessings will flow. I just don’t think true  Christianity as that simple or easy.

For me to accept firmly that the ball has been lost means to see the truth that my own life is broken and messy. I am not as I ought to be. To accept the Gospel of Jesus is to embrace the brokenness and messiness of my own life and those around me. It is not about life being golden.

For me, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not about believing or acting a certain way so that I can then have everything be golden and have blessing after blessing come my way.

Jesus came for the sick, the broken, the lost and for those who mourned.  

Sometimes all I can do is agree that my own life is at its best, messy. I can admit it. That is the first step. But, then, what do I do about the messy areas?  Can I move toward those places?  I don’t know if I can because it is those messy places, those “edges”, that are fearful places for me. They are not fun or make me feel comfortable and they do not feel like “blessings”. .   

As a group of men this past Saturday fly fishing the Platte, we tried to begin to talk about those edges. It was not easy. But, for some of us, it was a first step in admitting and knowing that our golden ball has been lost and life is not whole even as the fishing was golden. .

Women Saying Yes to the Journey of Fly Fishing

I think women are generally better at certain things than men. Simply being able to say “yes” to participating in a fly fishing and faith retreat seems to be one of them.

The Reverend Jim White and I have been doing these fly fishing retreats for several years now. Women have been the most responsive. In talking with one of the participants this past weekend, Chris, said, “When I saw the invitation I just said yes”.  I have to admire such decisiveness. Men should be as decisive but often we perpetually waver caught in between stagnation, fatigue, desperation and perceived responsibility. “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation,” said Thoreau.

Poetry by e.e Cummings seemed fitting as these women all said  ‘yes’ to the adventure to fly fish under  the beauty of a blue sky.  We felt the soulfulness of his words: “I thank you God for this most  amazing day, for  leaping greenly spirits of trees, for a blue true dream of sky above, for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is, YES.”

Poetry:  Another area where women are generally more moved in their souls and have a  greater depth of understanding. And these women knew poetry, literature and seemed to have access to the inner life.  

Community: These women could talk about what they felt inside with one another and were readily expressive.

Thankfulness: Once again, I think women are generally more thankful for life and its opportunities. This even seemed to be true in regard to fly fishing as men can be too wrapped up in performance. These women often said, “It does not matter if I catch a fish”. Women generally just love to be on the river trying something new and taking in their surroundings. They are generally more holistic and intuitive in their approach and will often catch fish even as they are not focused on catching fish. .

So we casted our flies on the river and as they sank slowly and tumbled along the bottom we hoped for a tug. At times rainbows and browns took the fly. In a similar fashion we dropped our thoughts, words and prayers into the mystery which we call God and hoped for something to stir in our souls.  I don’t know if there was a response or what that response could be as I am mainly ignorant of such matters. But I do know we sat still in silence. We sat still in contemplation. We hoped.

In the end there was thankfulness for the adventure and the time together. There was thankfulness for this most amazing day and for all these brave women who simply said, “Yes”.

Fish Stories, Tales, And Bible Stories. Literal or Not Literal?

Toward the end of the novel, “A River Runs Through It”, Norman Maclean tells us that his father once asked him, “You like to tell true stories, don’t you?" And Norman answered, “Yes, I like to tell stories that are true”. Then he asked him, “After you have finished your true stories sometime, why don’t you make up a story and the people to go with it”? and then added, “Only then will you understand what happened and why.”

I’m not sure what to make of the Reverend Maclean’s comment.  While I have a few ideas I am not certain how writing a fictional story would help anyone understand a family tragedy.  Apparently Norman was not clear what the comment meant either.  Norman remembers the comment in a series of questions his father had asked which left Norman confused. He says, “Once my father asked me a series of questions that suddenly made me wonder whether I understood even my father whom I felt closer to than any man I have known.”

The comment and questions caught my attention because I love stories. I use stories when I teach, when I guide and when I counsel. Stories do help me and others understand complex issues. And of course I know Jesus used parables.

When Jesus told his parables, most often he did not explain how they should be interpreted. He did not say whether they were true or not. He often just told the story.

He did not say, “You need to take this story to be literally true”. But he also did not say, “Now, you cannot take this story literally”. He just spoke. He just told the parable and let it be. He knew what he was saying was the truth and that was enough.

Sometimes I think people get so hung up on making sure they and their listeners believe a story to be literally and factually true that they can ironically miss the true meaning and power of the story. Without knowing it, their qualifying comments dim the radiance of the story.  And at the same time there are those who are so afraid of being labeled as a fundamental Bible believer that they say again and again to themselves and their listeners, that the story cannot and should not be taken literally.  In a similar manner but for different reasons, they also can miss out on the depth, power and meaning of the story. In essence, I think we can ruin a story and empty it of its’ power and as C.S Lewis once said,  miss out on its “Mythological radiance”, by making too many qualifications, apologies and explanations.

I know when I tell stories to kids and they look at me with those knowing eyes and ask, “Is this story true”?  I then know that with their question they have answered my own question about stories. While I usually do not answer their question I most often say in my mind, “Of course the story is true”.    

Jesus just told the stories. The Bible tells us stories. We are best to just tell the stories or listen to them and perhaps only then will we understand.  

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.