learning to fish

There was a surprise today in the mail.

A letter from my aunt. Well, more a card than a letter, with a photo inside. Of my Mum.

My aunt had been digging around among odds and ends and came across this photo of my Mum from 1947. So she thought that she would send us all a copy of the thing.

And I'm glad she did!

My aunt was learning to drive at the time.

(It's a shame I have to tell you that because now you'll have some notion of my aunt's age - 17 in 1947 makes her what in 2007? The maths is not too hard! But anyway!)

And my Mum was learning to fish. So they'd taken one of the 'L' plates off the car and tied it round her waist. To the great amusement of all.

Actually I think it looks a bit like the Queen on one of her royal estates!

When I opened the card and I looked at the photo inside, I was really quite moved. Partly the sight of a picture of Mum, which kind of caught me off my guard - it was all so out of the blue.

But partly as well, the aptness I saw in this snapshot of days now long gone. A picture, that is, not only of Mum, but a picture of just where I'm at.

Fishing.

It was fishermen who heard the call of Jesus first of all. Fishing? he more or less said to them both. You want to learn do do some fishing for real. Come, follow me.

And the rest, as they say, is history. They followed him and learned to fish 'for men'. They learned to live in such a way they gathered to the side and cause of Christ a whole great crowd of different folk discovering how to live.

Fishing. That's what I'm doing with my life.

Learning, like my Mum in the picture from long ago - learning to fish.

Looking back on today, it's this picture my aunt kindly sent which brings all of my day into focus, I think. It's this business of learning to fish that my day's been about once again.

A sort of mixture of bits of preparation and of meeting up with people.

I've been trying to prepare for the coming Sunday services. But it's all been rather bitty. Bits of time on this and that. And then a pause, a break, another interruption. People at the door and popping in. And phone calls to be answered and .. well, you know how it is. A bit sort of stop and start. Or start and stop more like.

Bitty. And a good deal more frustrating than fulfilling in the sense that it didn't really feel like much was getting done. Though bit by bit it was, of course.

My day was simply punctuated, time and time again, by time I shared with people. Which is like what the fisherman does. Casting his line again and again and just waiting to see what that trailing his line in the water may bring.

There were, I think, two different parts of the day which illustrate just what this 'fishing' following of Christ entails.

Lunch for a start. Not the food, so much as the company I had. I met up with Mike for lunch again today. Here at the halls. We'd agreed last week to meet for lunch and today he was here with his daughter too. Up from Manchester.

Mike's wife died a couple of months ago. That's how I got to know the guy. And it's really just friendship I'm giving to him. Friendship in the name of Christ.

That's how I like to think of it. Not friendship for the cause of Christ. That suggests an underhand and something less than genuine sort of friendship - which does no one any good. But friendship in the name of Christ.

The sort of simple friendship Jesus offered folk himself. No strings attached. Just friendship. Warm, attractive and fun.

That's all that lunch was, I guess. Nothing deep. Nothing heavy or laboured or anything very intense. The guy doesn't need that sort of stuff at all. My only desire is that he gets the sense that Jesus is for real. A friend. Right there, beside him at the table. Day by day.

Well, that was lunch. And I think that it's part of the 'fishing' that Jesus taught. Just being with folk, giving time to them all, eating and chatting and laughing and sharing. And life being imparted in subtle and wonderful ways.

The same was true at night I guess. I was out visiting a couple of different folk. Two couples. The one whose twins will be baptised here this coming Sunday morning. The other, the couple I've met with in their home for many months.

It's a week by week, ongoing sort of thing. Building up and deepening that relationship. And finding in and through that rich relationship that Jesus too is known.

What a joy it is to have time with them. To see the way they've just come on and out across the months, by leaps and bounds. Alive! Part of the crowd discovering how to live.

It's hours and hours that fishermen spend at the river's side. But that's what it involves. It isn't any simple sort of push-the-button sport. It's a way of life.

With a lot to learn.