A Fly Fisherman’s Carol

A meditation of fly-fishing and Christmas. “[M]y worst days with Christ will be far better than my best days fishing without Him.”

From Crisis

By J.T. Noyes

What is the great story and season of Christmas if not a tale and time of transformation?

As I scuttled down the rocky bank amid the chilly, biting air of a cloudy November morning, my ears perked to the sound of the rushing water coming from the stream below. The musical dance of the crystal-clear water weaving in, out, and over the rocks and boulders served as a siren song. This song, as though it were played by the Pied Piper of Hamelin himself, has led many an angler to the water; and on this particularly dreary day, I was no exception. I had once more fallen victim to the familiar and enchanting tune of a place where trout live. 

The cold, the leafless trees, the dull grey of the sky, and even the grudging acceptance of the high probability of not netting a fish this day, couldn’t keep me from the water this late-Autumn morning. I was going fishing. Fly fishing to be precise. And perhaps for no more reason than the principle set forth in the perennially-referenced fisherman’s proverb: “A bad day fishing is better than a good day at the office.” 

The morning went as expected, mostly slow and cold with a few lazy attempts by weary brown trout to strike my poorly placed flies. As noon approached, I was ready to cut my losses. But before I did so, I decided to lick my wounds with a cup of coffee and a late breakfast at the small café that sits atop the canyon where I was fishing. After filling up on a surprisingly hearty meal of hashbrowns, eggs, and sausage that I am confident stretched out the waistband on my waders an inch or two, I emerged from my little restaurant oasis to find the clouds had parted, the sky had turned blue, and the sun was shining mightily above the ponderosa pines and limestone rock that encircled me.

This welcome transformation in the weather resulted in an equally favorable transformation along the water. Encouraged now by the rise in temperature brought forth by the warmth of the midday sun, hatches of bugs began and signaled to the previously timid and elusive trout that it was time to feed, and so they fed. Many of which, to my great pleasure, did so upon the counterfeit flies I casted and drifted in their direction.

Driving out of the canyon later that evening, as the sun sank below its walls, painting the sky as it departed in shades of orange, pink, and dark blue, I couldn’t help but ponder and appreciate the transformative power of God. Smiling and fulfilled on account of the way my day had ended so favorably, I considered God’s ability to take what would otherwise seem hopeless and foreboding to our human perception and transfigure it into something beautiful and life-giving. Thus is the reason why I share this story with you, dear readers of Crisis. For what is the great story and season of Christmas if not a tale and time of transformation?

To begin with the most apt example, it is only God who can take the setting of a home for animals, with all its filth, stench, and straw, and transform it into the endearing scene of salvation and joy known the world over, taking humanity’s notion of a mighty king and turning it on its head. This King, who, as a baby, would enter this world as lowly and humbly as any in history, would grow to become a man. Not just any man—the God-man, the One who would go on to transform the Roman cross of crucifixion from a symbol of humiliation, torture, and death, to one of strength, sacrifice, and hope. Even after death, Christ’s transformative power did not cease. On the contrary, it amplified. Turning the tomb from a place of finality and decay to our cradle of resurrection and a new, everlasting life.
The Christmas season more generally is further proof of God’s metamorphic handiwork. In this often-bleak time of year—where all in nature is dead and dormant, the days are short, the nights are cold and long, and depression and anxiety are most prevalent—we celebrate, we sing, we give thanks and praise, and we join those, even in secular circles, who proclaim that this is “the most wonderful time of the year!” We do so not because of decorations or the catchy jingles on television but because deep in the human heart there is an unshakeable, even if unacknowledged, awareness this time of year of that supremely transformative event that took place for our benefit some 2,000 years ago in that unassuming little town of Bethlehem.

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol has stood the test of time and will forever be a cherished holiday tale because it is a story that taps into this awareness in the human heart that God’s transformative power is real and effective, especially during Christmas. This is true only because of the first Christmas, wherein God became “pleased as man with man to dwell,” as recounted beautifully in Charles Wesley’s lyrics to “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.”  

In his description of Ebenezer Scrooge in the early pages of A Christmas Carol, Dickens convincingly paints the portrait of a man whom the reader would never imagine softening to the spirit of Christmas. Yet, in the end, he does—undergoing, in the truest sense of the term, a “transformation.”

This spirit of Christmas that Scrooge’s hardened heart softens to is the Holy Spirit. The One who proceeds from the Father and the Son to enlighten us, soften our own hardened hearts, and transform what we may, at present, see as difficult, painful, worrisome, or annoying into something life-altering and transformative. This Christmas, let us permit the One who changes blindness into sight, sinners into saints, and bread and wine into His Body and Blood be the One to transform our lives. In so doing, perhaps we will begin to utter a new angler’s proverb whenever we venture to those places where fish live, saying, “my worst days with Christ will be far better than my best days fishing without Him.”