Cybercolumn by John Duncan: The one that got away_72604

Posted: 7/23/04

CYBERCOLUMN:
The one that got away

By John Duncan

I’m sitting here under the old oak tree, thinking about fishing. Jesus called fishermen to follow him.

The orange sun rose over the bay in Key West, Fla. The humidity of the morning and the coming day excited me. I watched the sunrise while the glassy waters mirrored the life of the sun. I ate breakfast, a feast of watermelon, sausage, scrambled eggs and orange juice. I walked off the ramp of the cruise ship on that summer morning and boarded a smaller vessel for fishing in the Florida Gulf Coast. The Duncan men—my father, George Sr.; my brother, George Jr.; my nephew, Graham; and I greeted that morning as we ventured on a fishing expedition. Sal and Brian, the crew of the ship, greeted us. Brian explained where the ice water was, where we were going, and our task for the day—to catch fish.

He exuded confidence that we, the Duncan men, would, no doubt, catch fish. Captain Brian opined along the way: “Fish with the best and not the rest.”

I am a disciple of Jesus. He loved fishermen. He loves me. I am no fisherman, but I do like to fish occasionally. Does that make sense? We rode out to our fishing spot on the boat named “Bullbuster.” I could not help but think of Key West, Ernest Hemingway, and his books, “The Sun Also Rises” about bullfights in Spain and “The Old Man and the Sea.” In Hemingway’s book about the old man and the sea, he tells the story of an old man battling a shark on a fishing excursion.

Hemingway describes with fabulous lines the fish: “Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the old man and over all of the skiff.”

Would today be the day when I would battle a fish and splash of the ocean would spray mist on my face?

Brian drove us in the “Bullbuster” 10 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico. We fished over a World War II vessel named “Alexander.” Sailors guided the vessel in WW II, but later it became a target for bombers practicing air raids. I guess the sunken ship “Alexander” was name after Alexander the Great, Aristotolean pupil, military general, 4th century B.C. military strategist, and the great one who once tamed a defiant colt. The sunken “Alexander” was our fishing spot. Would today be the day to tame a wild fish? Brian instructed us that we were fishing for “yellow snapper.” I asked Sal, whose cackling laugh kept me entertained, if it helped to talk, “Does if help to talk to the fish?”

“Yeah, oh, yeah,” he cackled and laughed and laughed and cackled.

The Duncan men caught yellow snapper, enjoyed the Gulf, and bonded in the life of the sun and the spraying mist of the ocean waters. Then it happened.

As I reeled in hook, line and sinker, a small yellow snapper, a larger fish zoomed quickly across the top of the water. “What do I do?” I asked Sal. “Leave it there,” he replied, instructing me.

Before I could say, “Howdy,” or whatever a Texan fishing in Florida should say, a kingfish grabbed the yellow snapper, the hook and took my fishing line fast and furious a hundred yards into the Gulf. Laughing and crying out, I said to Brian and Sal: “What do I do? What do I do? Tell me, what do I do?”

Anne Lamott in her book “Traveling Mercies” speaks of the two best prayers she knows: “Help me, help me,” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I cried out help me with words, “What do I do?”

“Just hang on,” Sal said as he cackled, “he’ll get tired,”

The fish tired. Sal and Brian explained to me how to reel in the kingfish. I struggled and battled and fought for 20 minutes. My hand felt tremendous pain, but I kept reeling.

Hemingway has a couple of sentences about pain: “I must hold his pain where it is, he thought. Mine does not matter. I can control mine. But his pain could drive him mad.”

The pain in my hand did matter. Was the pain of a hook in the kingfish driving him mad?

The fish and I fought and struggled, struggled and fought until I had the fish within 10 feet of the boat.

Then suddenly, with a spin on top of the water, the fish whipped his tail like a sword and cut the line. It is my fisherman’s story of the big one that got away.

So here I am under the old oak tree, thinking. Life is cackling laughter and struggle and days where men bond together in the life of the sun and the spray mist of the ocean.

Abundant life is about being a disciple of Jesus, a fisherman whom Jesus loves. It is about saying to our Lord God in Jesus Christ, “Help me, help me, help me!” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Life is about the story: fishing, the big one that got away, and the gospel story of Jesus’ love. Feel the sun. Feel the mist of ocean spray. Feel the love – of Jesus. “Come unto me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

John Duncan is pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, Texas, and the writer of numerous articles in various journals and magazines