God loves a fisherman

As I slide my old beat-up canoe into the still water at the edge of the lake, a feeling of calm happiness settles on my soul. Being unemployed after more than thirty years of practically uninterrupted work can cause even a much more optimistic person than me to carry with him a constant sense of gloom and failure. But, as I sit somewhat shakily into the seat and pick up my paddle, I realize that there is at least one silver lining. Being forced to simplify can be a blessing, especially to a fisherman. Gone is the comfortable bass boat with its stable casting deck, and the multiple rods, pre-rigged with a variety of expensive lures. But in its place is the quiet whisper of the water slipping along the hull as I make my first long stroke with the paddle. The early morning sun, just over the trees, feels warm on my arms, and the faintest of breezes carries the scent of newly mown grass.

As a boy, this was my only kind of fishing. A canoe (or a small john boat) that my best friend and I had laboriously carried through thick brush to a hidden pond was our Bass Bomber, and the few old lures and a pack of soft plastic worms snitched from my Dad's tackle box were alternated on one precious birthday-present spinning rod. We were huge fans of Roland Martin and Bill Dance. My Dad thought it comical that we would holler "Sonnnnn!" every time we set the hook on a bass. Roland had yet to take up the TV habit of kissing every fish he caught , or we would have done the same.

Over the years since then, fishing shows have become a series of commercials and product placement, always touting all the must have technology for the serious business of catching fish, and my fishing had become much the same. I thought I would never go back to enjoying the quiet, concentrated fishing that is done when you can only reach a few hundred yards of shoreline. But, I realize now, there are two words that don't apply to fishing or life. Always and never. A fisherman that says to his fishing buddy, "I always catch fish around this point", is guaranteed to come up empty that day. If he says to his eight year old son, "You'll never catch a fish that way, you're reeling way to fast", the boy will invariably haul in a three-pound bass on the next cast.

The same applies to those beliefs that we hold dearly, reassuring ourselves of the security of our place in the world. "A person can always find a good paying job in electronics," was one of mine, as was "They won't lay me off, I'm too valuable to them". Ah, well....

But as I ease closer to a particularly fishy-looking spot on the shoreline, I realize that in life, as in fishing, there is a lesson in everything that happens. And as my bait slips neatly off a half-submerged log into the shadows below, it occurs to me that there is an exception to the always/never rule. God loves a fisherman...always.