Preacher’s Passion
I participated in two water sports a few weeks ago: fly fishing and baptism.
I grew up fishing on Lake Erie off the JO-KE, my grandfather’s boat named for his children – my Aunt Joyce and my dad, Keith. Grandpa, Dad, and my Uncle Jim would bait my siblings’ and cousins’ hooks with minnows. We’d then pivot our rods over the edge of the boat, release the bail, and watch as the weighted sinker plunged the minnows into the blue-green water and they disappeared into the deep. We’d give a tug and a holler when a fish bit and reel them in. Grandpa, Dad, or Uncle Jim would grab the flapping fish as soon as one of us kids pulled ‘em out of the water. They’d remove it from the hook, put it in the basket, bait our hooks, and we’d be back at it. After we’d caught a passel of perch, enough for dinner for Gabe and Mamie Shirey and their dozen angler descendants, we’d head back to the cottage and frolic on the beach as Dad and Uncle Jim cleaned our catch and Grandpa napped. Fishing was easy peasy.
Not so for fly fishing. Though this first-timer was tutored by two fine, experienced trout fishermen, Rick Frost and Phil Fichter, a voice whispered, “David, this is not your grandfather’s fishing outing. Put on your big boy waders for this venture into the 100 million gallons of 56° water that flow forth each day from Bennett Spring in which rainbow trout frolic.”
“Bring it on!” I said. There’s a reason Jennie says my middle name is Challenge.
My mind in the zone for learning a new mode of fishing, my mentors dressed me for the task at hand. Phil handed me waders with size thirteen boots. Next came a fanny pack replete with tackle including leaders, a stringer, some strike indicators (I used to call them bobbers, but I learned fly fishing has its own vocabulary), and a slew of other doodads real trout fisherman (which I’m not) pull out of their bag of tricks (which I didn’t) and employ in the catching of a trout (which I did twice … in eight hours). Last but not least, after we bought my fishing license and day pass in the General Store, Rick beckoned me to a glass display case of lures of every shape, size, texture, and color. He then pointed to the one for me: a white yarn-like creation with a puff above the hook called “Preacher’s Passion.” I don’t know whether that was the manufacturer’s name for it or Rick’s, but it sounded perfect to me.
Well, the lure was perfect but the fisherman using it was not. Far from it. Long story short:
Phil’s waders leaked, a source of frivolity throughout the day as I squish-squashed my way in baby steps through the water. I treaded cautiously across the slick rocks so as not to slip and fall into the 100 million gallons of cold water, but several gallons did manage to seep into my waders, my size thirteen boots and, most hilariously of all, onto my jeans squarely at my crotch so that when I took off my waders for lunch, I looked like I had peed my pants. Whereupon Phil and Rick suggested I invest in some Bass Pro Shop Depends before going back in the river.
I had several casts with which I caught various and sundry non-aquatic items including the back of my waders (once), a tree branch behind me on the shore (twice), and the grassy brush at the edge of the river (thrice).
I also hit the trifecta on the three times my line got tangled in a miserable knot somewhere between the going back in my casting motion and the foisting forward, messes I untangled twice on my own and once by turning to Dr. Phil who took one look at the rat’s nest of tangle and went straight to surgery – cut the line off above the insoluble knot and started over. I was back in the water in no time, just in time to hook my butt, to which I did not call attention and which, upon my extraction of the Preacher’s Passion fly, did not require medical attention at the hand of Dr. Phil.
When my fly finally did make it into the water, I had several strikes in response to which I responded with my childhood perch-fishing tug which isn’t much of a tug at all. Noticing my polite, ineffective effort, Phil politely and effectively said, “Be a little more decisive next time.” Wink.
When my fly did make it into the water and I did set the hook decisively, I did what I always did on Lake Erie – began to reel in the fish by turning the reel handle. Wrong. At the same time the voice within said, “Dorothy, you’re not on Lake Erie fishing for perch anymore,” two voices without, Rick’s and Phil’s, said in unison, “Use your hand, not the reel!” “Keep your rod up!” “Give him some line!” “Tilt your wrist!” The aforementioned and other instructions were cast my way by my mentors, but they were lost on me, as was the trout who emerged from the water about twenty feet away long enough to splash, gift me a glimpse of the sun’s rays glistening across his gorgeous colors and stick his tongue out at me at the same moment Preacher’s Passion was disgorged. That episode was followed by Rick coming alongside me and teaching me the proper way to use my right wrist and rod in combination with my left index finger and thumb so as to successfully land a fish. Which I did. Twice in six hours.
I ate two trout for dinner which Rick fried to perfection complemented by a beverage (or two) that Phil prepared to perfection. We then sat outside long into the night telling stories like fishermen do, a few of them true, about the ones that got away, the location of my leaky waders watermark, and, most of all, the joy and pleasure of standing waist deep and eyes open in God’s creation: water, foliage, fish, sky, and friendships formed in Christ.
On the way out of the park the next day, Phil pulled over so I could ceremoniously inter the leaky waders in a dumpster.
Two days after returning from Bennett Spring, I was back in the water again. Sunday morning, I donned not waders, but a baptismal robe. The water was closer to 86° than 56° as I stood belly deep not in Bennett Spring but Broadway’s baptistery, set to immerse six youth who had completed four months of Pastors’ Class under the tutelage of my colleagues John and Terry and the mentoring of six adult sponsors.
Two millennia ago, Jesus told fisherfolk who plied their trade not by rod and reel but by net that he would make them fishers not of perch or trout, but of people (Matthew 4:19). For forty-two years, I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of following Jesus’ lead in the Catch and Release fishing enterprise called baptism.
Catch: I never cease to be amazed when a new disciple is caught by some facet of the gospel cast imperfectly by imperfect people like me, parents, Sunday school teachers, youth sponsors, and such. Drawn to the hue and texture of gospel lure we cast toward their lives – something good enough, beautiful enough, wondrous enough to catch their attention – they swallow hard and say Yes to the prospect and promise of life in Christ. Caught ever so tenuously by the awkward casting of our witness their way, they wade into the waters. Cradling their still-growing adolescent bodies (and still-growing adolescent faith) in my left arm while raising their cupped hands to cover their mouth and nose with my right hand, I gently lay them down beneath the waters.
Release: Immersed in the good news of the gospel, I raise them up from the water to the raucous applause of the congregation (a fitting, lovely, Broadway touch). Fresh-from-the-water rainbow trout have nothing on newly minted followers of Jesus. Hair sopping wet, mouths agape gasping for breath, gangly legs struggling for a foothold, these newest disciples are raw and wild and wide-eyed. After a prayer for the Spirit’s descent upon them, I release them into the waiting towels and arms of their mentors. “Walk in newness of life” said Paul (Romans 6:4). One boy asked if he could make a cannonball into the baptistery. No, he was told, you might splash octogenarians Jack and Darlene in the front pew. But by all means go forth from the baptistery and make a splash for the kingdom of God. Caught and released, off he went.
To see those new births up close, the wet, wild wonder of them, the catch and release of a new generation of disciples of Christ, is a Preacher’s Passion of a whole ‘nother sort than the flies sold at the counter of the Bennett Spring General Store.
My fisher friends Rick and Phil would concur.
