Smallies, Bees, Turkey and Chickens

Fishing is great! The boys hammered the Smallies last Sunday afternoon. Fergus and Virgil have been called to adventure and have begun fishing Spur Creek. What great fun and the smile or should I say the light on their faces is impressive when they are holding a smallie by the lip standing waist deep in a clear stream. The bite is on and even Dad is going to get into the fray tomorrow, the boys I grew up with having the same kind of adventures as my boys are having are coming up to fish the BW. I don’t think we will have the same sense of awe and wonderment as my boys have but I get we will enjoy make new memories and reliving old ones. It is funny we have all grown older and taken different paths but I get the sense we are all looking forward to getting our lines wet just as much as we did when we were boys. The reasons are different, I can escape a cube and all that is Research, D. can escape academia and M. well he will enjoy a day away from the “grind”. I am not sure where the years went or where I lost my why of what is important but my boys and JB (my daughter) have helped me recapture how it can be exciting to go to a little stream and “explore” all the possibilities that might be just around the bend. I could go on about how God has called us to live an adventure, just like John Eldridge tells us, but I won’t because we all know it we just ignore it. Maybe not all the time but most of the life we have developed for ourselves is that of the day to day struggle to get back and forth to work and kids activities not catching the big one or hiking to the other ridge in the distance. After watching my kids I want to grab the wife and with the kids in tow hike to the far off ridge or float the stretch of water we have never seen.

My daughter has inspired me that it is not just the target of the hunt but the experience. We turkey hunted about a week ago saw a few birds, heard a gobble or two but no bird in the bag. She was sad but then saw a family of geese with the little ones waddling behind. That scene of the geese was what she told everybody about, but don’t think she isn’t a hunter, after seeing the geese she asked when we could go back and kill them. She sees the beauty in nature but likes the taste better. She is quite the little girl and a good sport to boot.

Last item: Bees and chickens at once. We went over to a friends’ (Dr. Phil’s) to pick up some half grown chickens and why we were there the neighbor hollered over at us about a bunch of bees. I told Fergus to load up the chickens and let’s go. We ran home unloaded birds, loaded beehive bodies, hurried back and caught up a big swarm. I guess this swarm probably had 12,000 bees, it was a big one. We trimmed the limbs back, the good Dr cut the main branch off while I held on and then we put it in the hive and that is that. Bees in a new home. A busy last few weeks.

Great Life

Well fishing is looking up. 80 this weekend and I have a young boy that is ready. He has several of his own flies he has been tying. He is ready to go. The fly fishing film tour sponsored by The Drake and Wildcat Creek Outfitters is Friday. Can’t wait.
Well here goes it has been a while since I have posted a lot is going on. I have been listening to a song that has these lyrics: Search me, know me Try me and see Every worthless affection hidden in me All I'm asking for is that You'd cleanse me, Lord Create in me a heart that's clean
Conquer the power of secret shame Come wash away the guilty stain of all my sin Clothe me in robes of righteousness Cover my nakedness with grace All of my life before You now I humbly bring. What great lyrics. Have you let the Lord be the Lord or do you just trust him to save you but not cleanse you of your earthly troubles. I have struggled with this. I am a man, I go to work everyday, I have worked hard, fixed things, built a cabin with my hands, used horses to skid logs and grown my own food why then shouldn’t I fix myself and my hurts. Wow what a bunch of foul smelling matter (crap)! I have learned or better yet am learning to let the Lord search me, know me and show me what I need fixed and what He is doing to help. I liken it to getting really dirty out working in the field and then coming in and knocking the dust off and going to bed. Eventually day after day of doing this you wonder why everything is feeling heavier and why you don’t recognize that guy in the mirror. The why is because the dirt is just built up over time because you are only knocking off the big pieces. What you need is a hot shower and then get back in and take another followed by a long soak in the pool. That is how your life is when you try to pick things up in your on your own, you may get a little of the mess straightened up but there is still chaos and just because you can jam it in the drawer, closet or stick it in a pile it is still a mess because it has not been put away. That means you need to let God put it away. If He can put away our sin forever I am sure he can put your hurts, past and pain away forever too. The great thing about that is that He wants to, because he came to give us life more abundant not just to clean up the junk, but abundant which to me sounds like I get new and better not just old and dirty or worn out. That is all for now but more to come about fishing next time the white bass and crappie are up in the river and the turkey are gobbling.

Free at The Cross

Fishing was good I think we caught 8 or 10. All three kids are now tying flies and doing great.
Have you ever felt over whelmed? I am there. The world is going at break neck speed and I am standing still. There are folks losing their jobs, trucks with blown motors, kids that are in the hospital and folks that won’t take responsibility. I often feel caught in the middle. I find it interesting that the world and more so your own world tends to get roiled up by the wake of sin. All of the sudden you look around and where you are fishing in your own stream the water is all muddy and it was clear just a moment before. You look around and notice that someone else in the past has made a bad decision or maybe a lifetime of bad decisions and it has finally made it into your stream. Now the fishing is lousy and the rivers eco-system and the watershed down stream are in jeopardy. How do we combat this? I don’t know other than to get help. Forget the past and I mean forget it. Don’t repeat it. Your help should come from those around you, a friend, your spouse, your pastor or a counselor. The past has left a wake in all of our lives but Christ has called us to a new life, a more abundant life. It is our choice. We can pick up our cross and carry it into a more abundant life or we can sit there and continue to look behind us at the cross and wonder why we never move forward. Moreover we must put ourselves in the proper place with Christ. As I sit here writing this I realize that I have fallen short of this, I have not picked up the cross and moved forward. Christ is first and I am not. I have for years either buried the past hurts or allowed them to creep in and pop up at the most inopportune times. The past is put to death on the cross just as Christ was, that is why he died. He died that we may be free of the past and free of future sin. I encourage you tomorrow to nail the past to the cross and set your self free just like He set you free 2000 years ago. You are free and that freedom is yours to claim. I will claim it tomorrow. I know that this is a convoluted mess in some ways, but it the best I can do to explain all that is happening in my world.