“Mending the Line” (04/05/2024)

My husband and I watched a movie on Netflix about the applications of fly fishing to the healing process for war vets. I’d mentioned it to a friend because I knew he was a Vietnam vet and a fly fisherman, but he didn’t have Netflix. So, I invited him and his wife to come for dinner and the movie. Watching the movie, “Mending the Line,” he told us, was both difficult and moving. Watching them watching the movie taught me so much about both the invisible crosses we carry and the strength of the human spirit.

I’ve never been to war. I can’t imagine the horrors nor the struggle to erase the images from one’s memory. Last night as I closed out my day in prayer, I must admit I permanently added vets to my list in gratitude for the price they paid for me and my freedom and for the cross they carry because of their service for us.

Watching the movie the first time, I learned a lot about fly fishing and about transitioning from being a soldier in a war zone to a citizen in a noisy society full of surprises. Watching it with someone who understood the movie’s message personally brought more meaning to both fly fishing and our debt to vets and their families and loved ones.

“Mending the line,” if I understand it correctly, is a term related to the way the “fly” drifts upon the water’s surface in an appealing way to the fish beneath. If there’s too much line, the “fly” doesn’t drift naturally, it is dragged in an unnatural and unappealing way that fish won’t bite. If I try to apply it to life, such as my own, it would be making adjustments for living life as it comes. For me, that would be prayer, that would be taking in the power and presence of the LORD at work around me no matter where I am, that would be living in the present and being present.

There were so many things within the movie that I realized applied to us all on our way. But perhaps the most poignant were the final words which I paraphrase: we must learn to take the peace we find standing in the river with us when we leave the water, with us into the world. And that to me so resonates with what I know to be true about our faith and our relationship with our loving LORD. The peace we find within our prayer, within our recognition of the LORD’s power and presence at work around us, we must be able to carry forward with us into the next moment, into the world, sharing it with others.

I thank the LORD for the random selection of a movie to watch with husband on a Thursday evening. I thank the LORD for the conversation with friends and the ability to share a meal, time, and a transformative time with them. I thank the LORD for taking me deeper into the mystery of life and the invisible crosses we all bear. I thank the LORD for those who give of themselves in times of need for us who are unable to do so.

And I ask the LORD to help me “mend the line” in my own life so that I might be able to adapt to where I land or where I am sent by my almighty caster.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.