Fly Fishing and Spiritual Reflections

      Fly fishing is a refuge for me.  Being out on the water with the sounds of the bubbling stream all around me, hearing the birds, seeing the insects flying around the edges of the stream are all a place of peace.  The essence of fly fishing is casting the fly just upstream of where the fish are and letting the fly drift downstream toward them.  The fish sees the fly floating towards it and before it can fully identify it lurches forward and takes the fly. 

       My mind is much like the fish.   I have some evidence of A.D.D. so my mind is going all the time.  There is seldom that I don’t have multiple thoughts going on at one time.  I bounce from this to that, processing this piece of information and then distracted by something else and off I go on that tangent.  Just like the fish I wait in the stream waiting for a fly to drift by.  I might go after it, I might acknowledge it and then let it go by, I might even engage with it and then let it go but unless I actually take the fly and it hooks me it is gone as quickly as it comes. 

       I tried for a number of years to work on my spiritual formation process but it was so much like the stream, way too many flies going by and I was so distracted by the next fly which was more interesting.  Someone suggested the concept of journaling.  It has transformed my spiritual formation process.  I went from jumping from one thing to the next to focusing more intentionally and intently on specific topics and letting them grow and develop within me.  The very act of slowing my brain down enough to get my thoughts out the end of a pen has made all the difference for me.  It keeps me more directed, less distracted, more aware, less arbitrary, more focused, less fractured.  

 
       Blank books and journals are so prevalent now and the old black Composition books are inexpensive and work very well.  Why not go out and get one and see if this discipline might be the ticket to slowing down and finding some good flies.