Patience or The Gentle Art of Fishing

"Jacob's Joy"

(Small watercolor study)

Patience is one of the hardest virtues for us to develop.  We want what we want when we want it...which is yesterday!  Our selfish predisposition finds it very trying to have to wait, continue to wait, and then wait even longer.  We don't like "hurry up and wait" situations. But time is one of the important ingredients in so many things...the aging of wine, cheese, growth of trees, gardens, and crops.  Time has the element of development in it.  The process is essential to the product or outcome. 

The sport of fishing provides opportunity for exercising patience.  You don't usually bait your hook, cast the line, and then immediately reel in the catch of the day.  Lots of factors go into a successful catch....time of day, weather, type of fish, type of insects hatching out, the type of rod and reel, color and size of lures, etc.  Fish don't plan on getting caught, so you have to be one step ahead of them in figuring out their habits and actions.  You often have to cast again and again before that successful setting of the hook and hauling in your desired catch. Many times there can be an ensuing fight from that fish that will wear you down until that creature finally ends up in your frying pan.

The daughter of Henry van Dyke, former Princeton professor, pastor and ambassador to Luxembourg, wrote this loving memory of fishing with her father:

"The best times of all, were the summer months when we left the hot, dusty city and went down to the little white cottage on the south shore of Long Island.  Here he first taught us the gentle art of fishing, and how well I remember the morning he spent showing us how to catch the minnows for bait in a mosquito net (for catching bait was always part of the game) and then how he stood with us for hours on the high drawbridge cross the channel, showing us the easy little twitch of the wrist that hooks the fish and how to take him off the hook and save the bait."

Fishing takes patience and so does life.  It demands that you show up to the page, the easel, the instrument, the gym or wherever you need to be to practice and work on your passion, to "move the ball" ahead in your life.  Stay in the chase.  Little by little progress is achieved.  

Here's a poem on time by Henry Van Dyke:

Time is

Too slow for those who Wait,

Too swift for those who Fear,

Too long for those who Grieve,

Too short for those who Rejoice;

But for those who Love

Time is

Eternity.

Live bravely and beautifully!