Fly Fisher of Men

“Out of Divinity’s attraction and longing for the human, God fashions a leash of longing love and attaches it to the human soul.”*

He was a fly fisherman. He found no other match for the thrill that he felt when a trout rose to take his fly and then, realizing its mistake, hurled itself away from him in a desperate attempt at freedom—often rising out of the water in an effort to shake the offending false food from its mouth. He loved the sense of triumph when he managed to play a fish long enough to guide it into his net. Adhering to the modern fly fisherman’s credo of catch-and-release, he nearly always let his victim swim free.

The fisherman began to ponder why he so enjoyed an activity that involved torturing a fellow creature solely for the tormentor’s gratification. It was not that he was opposed to the killing of animals; indeed, he often hunted the white-tailed deer which lived in over-abundance in the rural area he lived. But he did this out of a sense of harvesting and ate what he killed. The problem with fly fishing was that you weren’t harvesting. Even if you kept a few trout, regulations severely limited the number you could have in your possession, so on any decent trip, most were simply let go.

The fisherman was also a dog person; valuing canines as creatures who would return your affection with unconditional love. He adored his dog, who was a floppy eared mutt of indeterminate background, and his dog, by all appearances, worshipped him.

As the fisherman aged, he began to apologize to the fish he caught before releasing them, until, at last, he abandoned his old pursuit entirely. He filled his time with walking his dog on the trails through the woods near his home, experiencing the delight of spending time with his ever-greying mongrel friend.

One day as the old man was ambling in the woods with his now ancient dog, he clutched his chest in pain. He fell to the ground realizing his time on earth was near an end. He began to contemplate whether there was a god, and, if so, why this god would have made man. He thought back to his days of toying with his watery quarry and wondered, “Might man have been created to be played with and tormented for the creator’s enjoyment? Could this god’s forming of man on earth be similar to the stocking of lakes and streams with trout?”

As the old fisherman lay dying, he became terrified about the nature of the deity he was about to meet. He thought he saw drifting down from the sky a fly line with an object at the end and was horrified, until, as it settled before him, he saw it was a leash and collar. He gazed into the collar and saw what he recognized as a universe of infinite love. He heard a voice say, “Of course you are free to roam whenever and wherever you want, but would you like to take a walk with me?

THE END

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* From Kathleen Deignan’s April 14, 2021 Tuesdays with Merton webinar, paraphrasing the anonymous 14th century author of The Cloud of Unknowing.