Boat Buoy, oil, 11×14, click for larger view.

A few posts ago I mentioned chumming. It was one of the points in What I Learned about Life from Dad’s Fishing, which said, “When chumming, be extravagant.” Chumming is the strategy of throwing bucket-fulls of very small fish over the side of an ocean-going fishing boat to attract big fish. If the fisherman don’t do it, chances are slim that any fish will come their way.

So often, if not always, illustrations from the natural world also fit in the spiritual. And here it is in Ecclesiastes: Cast your bread on the waters, for after many days you will find it again.*

Why “bread” I don’t know, unless it was bread that was lacking. That’s how it works.

One time, many years ago, in the midst of a particularly challenging time financially, I was moved in my spirit to give away my boat. “What? My sailboat?” It was a beautiful mahogany-hulled racing sloop that I’d long loved. But we were going through a life change and moving to a place where it wouldn’t be useful and when I asked what to do with it, this is what I heard in my mind, “Give it away.” So after a moment’s wrestling, and checking with Anne, I committed to go through with it. We donated it to a worthy cause which sold it and used the money.

We were no poorer for doing it, and possibly a good deal richer in the soul. It was years later that it began to dawn on me that every time I came near water, whether lake, river or ocean, a boat was provided for our pleasure and for however long we wanted to use it.

I could wonder if the translation should have been, “Cast your BOAT upon the waters and after many days . . .” except I’ve seen this reality happen in many, many ways, both tangible and intangible. It’s got to be the best of all investment strategies.

Funny how it can be so scary at the front end.

All it is is a risk!

All it requires is faith!

(That’s real faith . . . the action kind.)

“But what if I get it wrong?” I ask. “What if my motive is selfish?

Seems to me we’ll never get those motives completely pure. A certain self-interest is built into every one of us . . . and built into the promise.

“But what if it doesn’t work? Then I get no big fish and all the little fish are gone, too!”

Yes, doubt undermines. If doubt wins there will be no chumming at all. And no big fish.

Giving costs. Spreading the bread involves faith. We’re dealing here in the invisible world where our physical eyes don’t serve. In fact, they work against us.

Who can say what’s really going on in the invisible world? Except this: “Not nothing.” Behind the scenes the tiniest detail matters, nothing goes unnoticed, and after many days, every investments receives return.

You can bank on it.

Get spreading some bread.

__________________________

*Ecclesiastes 11:1

Next: Vows and the Work of Our Hands. Coming Friday.

6 Comments

From an old journal,
a ballpoint sketch I drew in the air. The caption just says, “Between Buenas Aires and Houston, 5/28/09.”
Is she content? You decide.

Better what the eyes see than the roving of the appetite.*

Contentment is a greatly underrated value, until you don’t have it.

It sounds so Vanilla when Double Chocolate Whipped Rocky Mountain Mousse is right there . . . just out of reach.

Why settle for what you already have when something better is looming in the mirage of your mind?

Well, for one reason, your eyes look better when focused.
Your mouth looks better without the drool.
Your conversation is better in the moment.
And your Attention Deficient Disorder is less obvious.

Question: How much time is misspent wishing things were different?
Answer: All of it.

I read an account of a man in prison who chose solitary confinement so he could better focus. Doing time, he had plenty of it, and didn’t want to waste a minute. He became a scholar in his chosen field (Egyptology), communicating with researchers on the outside. He’s getting out early for good behavior, well cured of the lifestyle that got him in, and now a man with a future.

Seeing value in the potential of his present situation was the key to everything.

The eyes are beautiful things to reveal what’s in front of us. But they also take in a lot of what we don’t have and leave us dry. It may be a hodge podge of mixed metaphor, but the roving appetite is the mother of a sunken rib cage of the mind.

To have “more” is a pretty human preoccupation. But I’ve often wondered, “Would I be happier?”

Or wishing for more again?

Happiness is a present tense state of mind.

Having all is never enough.
But having enough is all.

______________________

*Ecclesiastes 6:9

PS My sister Sue’s blog today features a pictorial tribute to my parents’ 70th anniversary. She was fourth of five, myself eldest. Take a look here.

Next: The e-gallery. Coming Thursday.

7 Comments

Patrick and Telar, a quick drawing of friends I just came across in an old sketchbook and seeming to fit here.

Here’s one for you.

There was a man all alone, wealthy, but without family. He had his work, but it wasn’t enough. In the end he asked himself, “What am I doing all this for?”*

Have you ever experienced that? I have, like when Anne’s been away for a few days. That doesn’t happen too often. (Actually, it is too often, just not very often.) At first I’m fine, relishing the time to really focus on whatever I’m doing.

But after a couple of days, I begin to run out of enthusiasm or, rather, out of “reason.” Like the guy in Ecclesiastes I begin to wonder, “Who am I doing all this for?”

It’s funny . . . up until that moment I would not have thought I was doing it for Anne, at least not the projects that have nothing to do with her. But as they weren’t for anyone else either, she fulfills (yet another) need I didn’t know I had.

A friend of mine experienced the same thing in a bigger way after his wife died. After his grieving, he threw himself into his work as his purpose for living but in time he had the same question: “What am I doing all this for?”

As it happened, he reconnected with an old friend, also recently widowed; they married and are now, in the natural course of things, happily doing things for each other.

Not everybody can do that. But everyone needs someone, who, if only in the background, they’re doing things for. Otherwise we run out of reasons; and when we run out of reasons we run out of everything.

Nowadays, whenever I start losing track of what I’m doing and why I am doing it, I think of someone I can dedicate the work to. They may never know . . . but it helps me.

Certainly it helps in writing a blog, having an idea that someone’s out there, reading, reflecting, and maybe responding. That’s why, in the first line, I dedicated this one to you.

Thanks for being there, giving me a reason to be here.

________________________

*Ecclesiastes 4:8 my paraphrase

Next: Having Enough. Coming Sunday.

12 Comments

Her and Him 3, Click for larger view.

Two are better than one because they have good return for their work.*

It takes two people to make one person successful. That’s something I first saw clearly while working in Papua New Guinea.

My friend Neil Anderson had stories, I had a desire to write. We worked together and a book was born.** Not that it was so quick, or so easy, but without the partnership nothing would have happened.

The fact is, it can take a lot more than two to make something complete, but two is minimum.

That doesn’t mean that both aren’t succeeding. Both can, and will . . . in different parts of the action. One may be dominant and the other supportive, but change situations and the supportive may be the dominant.

It’s the person working completely alone that dries up.

One artist I learned of tried it, working day and night, year after year, never going out, even having his food delivered. In the end, he shot himself. He left a lot of good work, but to no one.

It was the ultimate non-success.

We all know such stories. And we’ve all seen how we can’t make it alone.

I see the principle worked out everywhere. God saw it first: It wasn’t good for man to be alone. If nothing else, it requires two for the ongoing of the human race, not to mention the help, the companionship, the conversation, the having someone to do things for.

And there’s more. Every response requires stimulus, and stimulus, a response. Every performer needs an audience, every writer needs a reader, every talker needs a listener, every pitcher needs a catcher.

You add to the list.

And thanks for reading this. Without you, I’d dry up.

__________________________

*Ecclesiastes 4:9

**In Search of the Source, by Neil Anderson and Hyatt Moore

Next: For Whom Am I Working? Coming Tuesday.

13 Comments

Boots on Dock, mixed media, 46×27, Click for larger view.

Following on from accepting things as they are,
here’s more counsel from the Ecclesiastical sage:
When things are good, be happy;
but when times are bad, consider:
God has made the one
as well as the other.*

Accept things. Also accept your emotions.

Be happy and don’t feel bad about it.
Smile when things are good.
And when they aren’t, don’t resent the smiles of others.

Easy times and hard, God has made them both.

Note that it doesn’t say, “When things go bad, get mad, sad, or like you’ve been had.” Ecclesiastes passed up all those chances for (English) rhymes. Rather, it says, “consider” (and where’s the rhyme in that?)

Consider what? For starters, that God made one as well as the other.

Job said, Man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.** It’s part of life since the fall . . . and the spring, summer and winter, too.

Whatever comes, take your bat and swing.
Hit, strike or foul, you’re still in the game.
Or walk . . .
You’ll find great grace in a walk.

Happiness, a wonderful emotion. It’s good for the bones; it helps the face. Be happy as much as you can and as often as you can.

But when things are hard, accept it, reflect on it, learn, deepen faith.

Don’t put on a false smile; God doesn’t expect it and it’s not honest.

Depth is one of the values He wants . . . and we want.

Good times and bad.
Both are of God.
Try and be happy.
And when you can’t, face it, learn from it, and move on.

Either way, things will change.

___________________

*Ecc 7:14
**Job 5:7

10 Comments

Who is like the wise? Who knows the explanation of things?

A person’s wisdom brightens the face and changes its hard appearance.*

Here’s a definition of wisdom: Knowing of the explanation of things. 

Okay, we sort of knew that. But what does it do? It brightens the face and softens the hard appearance.

Whooda thought?

Wisdom is an internal perspective which has a visible effect on the external appearance of the one that has it.

Wow!

Here’s an idea: How about a line of beauty products or anti-aging cosmetics called “Wisdom Works.” Or “Worry Chasers.” Or how about “Looking-Good-Clear-Eyed-Long-View Lotion.”

Trouble is, how would you bottle it, or price it? Economically it would bomb; it’s too free.

And where would you apply it, to the eyes?

I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.
The wise man has eyes in his head, while the fool walks in the darkness . . .**

Wisdom is a proper interpretation of what you take in; but first you have to take it in . . . clearly. Having wisdom is like having an invisible coal miner’s lamp inside the forehead.

Fumbling in the dark can make a fool of anyone.

If I gathered together a list of my life’s lower moments (shudder), I expect I’d find a lack of wisdom at the base of them all . . .
and a fumbling in the dark.

Wisdom brightens the face. How? Wisdom looks beyond.

It’s the present circumstances that can skew the smile, and projected fears that distort the countenance. Wisdom looks farther than both and provides the calm.

It’s a “Balm of Calm.”

Hey, there’s another.

Comments? Further names? I’ll be happy to see them.  And the wiser.

_______________________

*Ecclesiastes 8:1
**Ecclesiastes 2:12,13

Next: Good Times and Bad—A Considered Response. Coming Tuesday.

7 Comments

One of the wise things a wise person knows about himself is he could be wrong.

I suppose it’s a good thing for keeping one humble. A truly wise person generally is humble.

The capacity for my non-knowledge of things is almost limitless. And it’s not just me. Look at what our Ecclesiastical brother says:

No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all his efforts to search it out, man cannot discover its meaning. Even if a wise man claims he knows, he cannot really comprehend it.*

The things I’m so sure about that I’d die defending are few. And those I hold by faith. Anything else I’m likely to vacillate on, soften my opinions, see from another perspective, or just say, “I don’t know.”

That’s not everything. Like I said, there are a few “articles of faith” that if I did not hold I might as well not be here. But there’s a universe else that is at best “considered speculation.”

It wasn’t always that way. I used to know a lot more.

But life kept revealing more of itself. At this rate, by the time I’m ready to go, I’ll know almost nothing.

Except where I’m going.

It’s an odd kind of consolation but, in the end, that’s all that matters.

It’s wise to get at least that one right.

_________________________

*Ecc. 8:17 NIV (see also Ecc. 7:23,24)

Next: The Beauty of Wisdom. Coming Saturday.

7 Comments

Click for larger view of Mom and Dad, before marriage, with plaque still hanging in their house, “An old fisherman lives here . . . with the catch of his life!”

My dad is 95 and not as active as he was, like about 95 percent less. In his earlier days he was always active and interested in a great many things; and fishing topped the list. He fished in lakes, steams, in the ocean—from the shore, the pier, or deep water. And he caught. He’d catch when nobody else was. But even when he didn’t, he enjoyed the time, just being out there.

It’s not something I inherited. But on reflection, I’ve learned a lot about life from Dad’s fishing . . . and what it takes to be successful in so many things.

First, he loved it. If you love what you do, you’re likely to do it well.

He worked at it. From the outside, things look easy, but then we find out different.

He thought about it. Before he went out he prepared, and kept adjusting the whole time.

He was happy to wait. A lot of fishing, and life, is about waiting.

He believed the fish were there. When we stop believing we stop . . . everything.

He knew attributes, habits and preferences of different kinds of fish. He applied knowledge.

He used different bait, lures and approaches for different fish. He applied wisdom.

For small fish, he used small bait; for big fish, he used large. He applied common sense.

For some fish, he’d cast and reel; for others, it was a sinker at the bottom. He knew “the where.”

He knew the fish bite according to their schedule, not according to his. He knew “the when.”

He had facility with all different kinds of fishing. He honed his skill, he knew “the how.”

You can’t catch a marlin with a trout line; or grunion with a pole. He had the right tools for the job.

He’d often have two lines in the water, one passive, one active. He made the most of his time. 

When boating from one location to another, or going in for the day, he’d troll. He was fishing beginning to end.

He knew when to keep quiet; if you scare the fish away it’s all over.

SOME ADDITIONAL POINTS

About chumming . . . be extravagant. Spread your bread on the waters.

Have a net ready . . . the fish is not caught until it’s in the boat.

On a good day, be happy; but let others do the bragging.

About the one that got away, don’t lament too much . . . such things happen.

Know there are no guarantees . . . even with all knowledge and wisdom and skill, the right equipment and all patience, the fish may just not be biting.

Finally, enjoy the process . . . without this, you will not continue; and if you do not continue, you will not catch fish.

Is this life, or what?

Tell me if you can relate, and where you think it applies.

_____________________

Feel free to share with a friend.

Next: The More I Know the More I Know I Don’t Know.
Coming Wednesday.

13 Comments

End of the Day, painted from the model one day last year, before I checked it off my list. Click for larger views.

I once met a man with so much money he didn’t have to work. He’d volunteer for things, but when it got difficult, he’d drift away. He didn’t have to deal with all that. On the surface it was a perfect existence but, in fact, he wasn’t at all content. In a rare moment of honesty he blurted out: I wish I just had something to DO!

What a shock. We’d have thought a person with everything could do anything. What this one lacked, however, was the “have to.”

Without that, the old ghosts of “What’s life all about anyway?” begin to haunt and undermine our sense of worth.

Boredom is a Boogie Man of the soul. It’s a barren desert where nothing grows and there’s little hope for change.

Thankfully, there are certain signs around to remind us to get busy, like: “No Loitering.” We should inscribe that one inside our eyelids.

Another useful one we’re likely to find on maps at the mall:
“You Are Here.”

I always take that as a great reminder.

As somebody said, “Wherever you are, be there!”

Another classic: “Don’t just stand there . . . “ (you know the rest).

Once, when I was young and had the blues (I’d been jilted), my dad recognized it and in his wisdom counseled me to get busy. Just “get busy.” Like what? He invited me to ping pong with his friends. It wasn’t just ping pong, it was killer ping pong, like when you finish you need a bath . . . in linament. And it was very effective for beginning to pull me through my doldrums.

All this agrees with a passage in Ecclesiastes about the happy state of man: He seldom reflects on the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.*

GOD keeps him occupied. No wonder my To-Do list keeps filling up. No wonder I wake up with ten things to do and by night know I’ve only finished five, or two . . . but done ten others not on the list.

This is God keeping me occupied, and calling it a favor!

He knows that too much pondering is, well, too ponderous.

A busy person is a happy person . . . and vice versa.

A ship looks beautiful in a harbor; but ships weren’t built for harbors.

We are born to move.

So, get back to whatever you were about to do.

And recognize it as a gift.

_____________________

*Ecclesiastes 5:20 NIV

Next: “What I learned from Dad about Fishing.” Coming Sunday.

8 Comments

Autumn Creek, detail, oil on canvas, click for full view. 

Generations come and generations go,
      but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
     and hurries back to where it rises.
The wind blows to the south
     and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
     ever returning on its course.
All streams flow into the sea,
     yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
     there they return again.*

It’s a rhyme of time by our “glass-half-full” ecclesiastical brother. How can I add to what’s already been said, except by more examples? The author calls it all “meaningless” and I see his point, but can just as well take the other tack.

What are these cycles but an eternity within time? And they’re an infinite resource thereby.

Do we not have what we need, and is there not plenty enough, even for us born so late in time?

We drink the water the ancients did; we breathe their air. From their same soil we dig our potatoes, feed our kine, take our meals.

The cycles of seasons, and of rain, sustains.

Is this tiresome? Sir, try living without it.

What we experience those before us also experienced, connecting us.

Time’s a circle, not a line . . . or perhaps, at best, a spiral.

We each have our turn, born, cycling through our stages, dying. Nothing new about it . . . except the variation on a theme, the distinction of you and me.

Each of us takes our turn on the swing, gently pushed at first, then learning to pump on our own, gleefully striving to fly the highest, maybe jump out the farthest, or just enjoying the movement and the ever changing scene.

When we get off, the swing set remains, and others take their turns.

We’re not quite sure how it happens . . .
why we get to swing at all
or who put the swing set there.
These are mysteries to a child
or would be if they thought about them,
which they don’t, not for long,
and neither do we much either.

The mystery remains.

Meaningless? Maybe.
But through my cycles, I’m changed.
And that, I think, means something
Meaningful.

Whether half empty or half full, it’s still a glass,
and there is water.
Come and drink.

________________________

*Ecclesiastes 1:4-7

Next: We seldom reflect on the days of our lives. Coming Thursday.

8 Comments