“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.” – Henry David Thoreau
A few months ago I had the chance to take a guys trip with my Father, 2 brothers, and cousin to Alaska. The plan was to catch 30 silver salmon each day, maybe a couple of halibut and fill all of our freezers for the coming year. I was so intent on this objective that I even rationalized it to my wife in order to justify the price of going “ You know, salmon is $20/pound, so If I come home with 100 pounds we are actually saving money.” I could tell from the sarcastic smile on her face that she wasn’t buying it, but she suggested that it might be a good thing to do to care for my own heart and for my relationships with my family.
As we dropped below the cloud cover, the rain forested islands of Ketchikan mingled with gray mist, and the reflection of the sun off of the ocean came into view. I felt my a surge of adrenaline at the thought of spending the next five days on a boat in the middle of the ocean catching fish, drinking cold dr. pepper, and visiting with some of the most important men in my life.
I think everyone else felt like I did because after quickly getting settled in at the Cedars Lodge (big shout out to Russell and the folks there for a great experience), we headed for the docks to pick up the silver and yellow Thunder Jet boat that would be our vehicle for the trip. We figured that we might as well get a bonus limit of Salmon on the first day when we didn’t really expect to fish.
The first evening we enjoyed the scenery of eagles overhead and a brilliant sunset but we did not catch any fish. We figured it was no big deal and that we still had 4 days to fill the freezer.
The next morning we were on the water and had the fishing rods trolling behind the boat right after daylight. By noon we had exactly 0 salmon in the boat. By the end of the day our luck was marginally better, having boated a single salmon between the 5 of us.
With the fishing being slow and the closed quarters on the boat, the entertainment turned from fishing to open discussion about every topic possible from sports, to hunting, to family relationships, to politics, and of course, religion and spirituality.
On the fourth day during a particularly slow part of theafternoon, a debate ensued about the nature of God. My father, a deeply devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints shared his feelings about a father in heaven. I argued in favor of a highly involved deity who is deeply interested in even the most miniscule details of our lives and the direction of the world. My brother believed that God may just be a construct that we use to find meaning for all of the things that we cannot explain. Another brother believed in the more traditional Christian view of God.
As opinions were shared and discussed, the intensity of feeling also increased. At about that moment when feelings were about to boil over, my brother stepped in and said something like this.
“Ok fellas, we will put this to the test. We are fishing with 3 rods right now and none are catching fish. This pole represents your Mormon God” pointing to the rod on the left.
“This one represents atheism” pointing to the middle rod,
“and this one represents the born again Christian God”. “Whichever rod does the best is proof of that existence”.
We all had a good laugh and the topic of discussion moved on to other topics like sports and hunting.
Five minutes later, the middle rod tipped off and my cousin landed a small pink salmon moments later. We continue to laugh while he sent the line back out and only moments later he landed another pink salmon on the same rod.
Atheism now had a commanding lead given our track record over the previous 3 days.
We continued to troll for another few hours. The only action that came in that time period was that the line on the pole designated as the “Mormon God” continually tangled and eventually only had 30 feet of line left on the reel.
Just before dark, we decided to troll for 5 more minutes and then make our way back to the dock. At the instant we agreed on this, the fishing rod that had been a total hassle and only had 30 feet left on the reel bent deep. My brother picked up the rod and eventually landed a massive silver salmon. This sent all of us into deep laughter and into our previous discussion about the nature of God as we sped the boat back to the dock.
When we landed on the dock, the worker asked “how’d it go today?”. We showed him our catch and he gave a wry smirk.
“Are you sure you want to keep these two pink salmon?” he said
“Why wouldn’t we?” we asked.
He grabbed a knife and sliced into one of the pink salmon “See this, they are diseased and the meat won’t be any good”.
We all chuckled.
As we got out of our boat and started to walk up the dock, the worker called out with one more phrase:
“Hey fellas, this Silver Salmon you caught is the biggest fish of the day at the lodge today”.
What does all of this mean? I know what I think it means, but it’s actually still up to individual interpretation. That’s part of the beauty of life.
The struggle to find connection with spirituality is a fundamental part of being human. It is in our nature to question the purpose and meaning of our lives. Embracing that continuous wrestle with our spirituality and pursuing a personal relationship with a higher power is at the core of an ongoing authentic life.
I am reminded of a song By ben Rector called “If You Can Hear Me” that speaks to some of these sentiments. It is not for us to always create certainty to have a happy life, but to sometimes embrace the need and power of faith and belief.
May each of us continue to cultivate that spiritual part of ourselves that leads us to belief, faith, and growth.