I have shared with some of you that I have never been fishing. When I was a child, my father fished some but not much. He was drafted into the army during World War II and became a corporal by the end of his two-year term of service. He was designated a sharpshooter. That ability he used in hunting supplemented the family’s food supply. My mother, who was a culinary genius, would make delectable whatever game he brought home. I had trouble viewing the pre-cooked animal. The face, particularly the eyes, troubled me. They were indicting me as though I had taken their life.
Over the years friends have suggested that I take up fishing as a hobby. I have always rejected that idea because of my lack of patience. I could not see myself sitting on a riverbank for hours and not coming home with dinner. This is the primary reason fishing had been suggested as an activity that would bring calm to my life. I also was problems with the hurtful and deadly deception of luring the fish to what they perceived as dinner only to find themselves with a hook in their mouths and dinner for the fisherperson.
This squeamishness also prevented me from dissecting a frog in my biology class although a pre-med student.
When I became vegan for medical reasons, I asked what I could not eat and was answered anything with a face or that came from something with a face. Ah! That was a gift.
I now find myself in love with a beautifully moving film where fishing is centered, Mending the Line. Here’s one description of the film: A Marine wounded in Afghanistan is sent to a V.A. facility in Montana where he meets a Vietnam Vet who teaches him how to fly fish as a way of dealing with his emotional and physical trauma. That is its surface meaning. It is a deep dive into human personality and its need for place and experiences of unconditional love where the oneness of life is a fact.
Dr. Howard Thurman says that we are surrounded by the love of God.
I am surrounded by the love of God.
The earth beneath my feet is the great womb out of which the life upon my body depends comes in utter abundance. There is at work in the soil a mystery by which the death of one seed is transformed a thousandfold in the newness of life. The magic of wind, sun and rain creates a climate that nourishes every living thing. It is law, and more than law; it is order, and more than order - there is a brooding tenderness out of which it all comes. In the contemplation of the earth, I know that I am surrounded by the love of God.
Not everyone has the deep mystical rapport with life that Thurman has. Sometimes our days are collections of disappointments, challenges, emptiness, and fatigue. We often feel that we are in combat with life and losing. Often we feel abandoned when the world around us is not the world needed, when the nation and neighbors refuse to be the nation and neighbors that must come into being. We tire of constantly reacting to the machinations of repressions but have not the energy nor luxury to create something different. Yes, continuous trauma can leave us more cranky than creative.
Someday We'll All Be Free
Song by Donny Hathaway
Hang on to the world as it spins around
Just don't let the spin get you down
Things are moving fast
Hold on tight and you will last
Keep your self-respect, your manly pride
Get yourself in gear
Keep your stride
Never mind your fears
Brighter days will soon be here
Take it from me, someday we'll all be free, yeah
Keep on walking tall
Hold your head up high
Lay your dreams right up to the sky
Sing your greatest song
And you'll keep going, going on
Take it from me, someday we'll all be free
Hey, just wait and see, someday we'll all be free, yeah
Take it from me, someday we'll all be free
It won't be long, take it from me, someday we'll all be free
Take it from me, take it from me, take it from me
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Donny Hathaway / Eddy Howard
Someday We'll All Be Free lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
From Mending the Line:
So you stand in the river, facing upstream with the water rushing down upon you, as if it could somehow fill the hollow emptiness. And somehow, it always does.
Colter has returned from Afghanistan where he was the only survivor of a campaign in Afghanistan. It was a mission that those under his command rejected. Their tour of duty was over they said and asked why the Marines could not use the newly arrived platoon for this particular campaign. Colter reminds them that they are Marines and Marines respond when called upon. The Marines are ambushed. All are killed except Colter. Although he wants to physically heal as soon as possible so that he can re-enlist and return to combat, the therapy model based on AA does not work. He walks out violently disrupting the ambiance created to assist with the healing. Somewhere near the beginning of the film the statement is made that sometimes survival is your punishment. The idea is a potent one and reminded me so much of the experience of an older brother, Neal, during the Vietnam War. His platoon was also ambushed leaving him as the only survivor. The question of why was a deep one. Why was he alive while others perished? This is called survivor’s guilt which gnaws away at the mind and soul. Fly fishing as a way to heal is suggested to Colter. There is a Vietnam Veteran, Iike Fletcher, who experienced similar trauma due to similar experiences in Vietnam and finally settled on fly fishing as the place of healing and total acceptance and resilience.
Lucy, a librarian, who becomes a friend of Colter, reflects on life, the life of trout, and their teachings for humans.
So it was one morning I stood there, without even casting, and with no trout rising. And as the water rushed past me, I knew it was washing my burdens behind me,
swirling them downstream like the autumn leaves. There’s a great deal about living the trout can teach us...They teach us how to keep swimming, even in a steady current.
Trout know that if they stop swimming, they cease to be trout and begin to become debris, floating without purpose, wherever the current may take them. Trout know that if they keep swimming, facing into the current, perhaps in the eddy of a rock, all that they need to truly live will eventually come to them. I learn a great deal from trout. Flyfishing connects you to the trout’s world…and in doing so, your own.
How pertinent is this insight for us today? We too must keep swimming, being resilient, hoping endlessly, and trusting the rivers of life. If we cease striving, we lose our own lives. We are no longer children of tomorrow, children of light, and children of the new nation. No. We become directionless, drifting afloat, with no place to call home and no horizon ahead beckons to us. We must keep swimming or we turn to trash not even garbage that can fertilize conditions that may lead to new life. Trash is good for nothing but the landfill.
Langston Hughes wrote: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown like the rivers.
Just as trout know that if they keep swimming, facing the current, perhaps in the eddy of a rock, all that they need to truly live will eventually come to them. My father used to say that what we need will be supplied. Dr. Thurman says that there is strength sufficient for our needs whatever those needs may be.
Colter goes fishing with Ike. Colter is joyful upon catching his first fish. Ike instructs Colter to wet his hands. Colter is instructed to let the fish go and is puzzled. Isn’t that the purpose of fishing? Ike responds in the most beautiful way: . . . I decided a long time ago I was done killing. Can’t you see how healing for Ike has taken place? Suppose we as individuals and a nation could say: We are done with killing in its various forms: war, deprivation, poverty, disdain for those differently abled, gender abuse, racism, sexism, class exploitation, and personal prejudice.
Ike says:
Standing in the river, you become part of nature.
Most of us see ourselves as the powerful bear, the sleek trout, or the majestic elk. But in reality, we are the mayfly, being carried along on the current. The smallest piece, but a piece nonetheless of this grandness that surrounds you. Yes, that means you face danger from above and below. But it also means, for the brief time we’re here, we can choose to fly. To live. ... Fishing doesn't solve your problems, it only brings them to the surface. But I think you know that now, and can handle everything you’ve gone through.
The quotations from the film Mending the Line are excerpts from the book Casting Forward by Steve Ramirez.
Dr. Thurman concludes his meditation "Surrounded by the Love of God" with these words.
The edge of hope that constantly invades the seasoned grounds of despair, the faith that keeps watch at the doors through which pass all the labors of my life and heart for what is right and true, the impulse to forgive and to seek forgiveness even when the injury is sharp and clear—these and countless other things make me know that by day and by night my life is surrounded by the love of God.
I am surrounded by the love of God.
Please join the National Council of Elders on August 6, 2024, for its extraordinary King and Breaking The Silence event via Zoom. The title of the event is “Only Revolutionary Love Can Save Us Now,” and it expands on Michelle Alexander’s concept of Revolutionary Love.
Here is a link to the website: https://kingandbreakingsilence.org/media/
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