The Story Behind the Picture

Today’s post is another tidbit from New Zealand, this one contributed by Bob Sessions:

On our trip to New Zealand, I walked alone one afternoon on a near-deserted beach near Kaikoura on the South Island. Eventually I came across a young man with a fishing pole who was casting into the surf.  I asked him the obvious question: “Catching anything?”

“Nope,” he said, retreating up the beach as a wave of water curled across the sand.

“Been here long?” I asked.

“About five hours.”

“Five hours!” I responded, not able to hide my incredulity that someone, especially a pre-teen, would spend such a long time at a seemingly frustrating exercise.  “Why have you stayed with it so long?”

“You have to practice,” he said, clearly more interested in casting than in talking.

Sometimes a brief interchange can speak volumes. The boy understood one of the lessons few people ever fully learn, that to do anything well requires patient practice.  Practice without expectations.  Sinking down into the activity itself.  I’m not much of a fisherman myself, but I know that fishing, like most things in life, can be a spiritual practice if one approaches it with the right frame of mind. What we need is something that allows us to release the chokehold of our everyday concerns, one that allows us to breathe the pure air of simply being there.  Practicing.