Cabin Fever, 2011

The snow has been on the ground a long time. It's going to be gone by this weekend, though. And I now have cabin fever really bad. Lake Michigan is looking bluer and bluer. I'm like an animal in heat. I'm daydreaming about my flyrod, for crying out loud. If you've not fly-fished you have no idea to what I'm referring. Of course you could never find one of us fly-fishers around, because we're usually in our garage or basement fingering our gear, longing for some modest warm-up, or bent over our tying desks dreaming up new concoctions that we're sure will beguile even the most wily salmonid.

A question: I wonder how many really odd fly recipes there are that tyers have tied during the doldrums of winter? I think that I've probably tied, in my lifetime, about 20 original creations that sank right to the bottom immediately. Not because there was any weight on the shank. No, the fly was embarrassed at being created. I've got this monstrosity in my box. Imagine, a long-shank hook, olive chenille, palmered grizzly hackle, two huge goggle eyes, and a mustache. I keep it in there for desperate days.... Or to remember what I can become. Thank God I'm building a guitar, now.

Guitars and Missions

I've got this picture in my mind. Guitars and Missionaries. Synonymous? Maybe. The guitar, in my opinion, is a thing of natural beauty. Finely crafted, played with skillful hands, it projects something heavenly.

Missionaries are like that, especially those who forsake the comforts of this life--saying, no extra clothes, no i-pad, i-phone, i-whatever; taking only what could be put into a suitcase and go live life in another completely different culture to share a message of hope and love and salvation. So, missionaries (like my friends), are a lot like that guitar--a finely crafted instrument playing the sweet strains of another world for another world to hear. To my friends, I say, "Thank you. I can hear what you are playing and thank you for being willing to be played--sometimes to an unappreciative audience--to sacrifice, to love others. That's what love does."

This give me pause. How am I being played?