In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the intertwined nature of personal beliefs and pastimes within family life.
Norman Maclean's quote reflects the intimate connection between family traditions, spiritual beliefs, and shared activities, suggesting that in his family, the practice of fly fishing is as significant and meaningful as religion. This intertwining illustrates how familial bonds and shared experiences often shape one's values and identity, creating a unique tapestry of life where leisure and spirituality coexist seamlessly.
In practice
During a family gathering, you might share this quote to highlight your family's unique traditions.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
Ahead and to the west was our ranger station - and the mountains of Idaho, poems of geology stretching beyond any boundaries and seemingly even beyond the world.
Poets talk about "spots of time", but it is really the fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone.
As I get considerably beyond the biblical allotment of three score years and ten, I feel with increasing intensity that I can express my gratitude for still being around on the oxygen-side of the earth's crust only by not standing pat on what I have hitherto known and loved. While oxygen lasts, there are still new things to love, especially if compassion is a form of love.
At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear. It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us. You can love completely without complete understanding.
One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.
If you lose a parent, it never goes away. As a kid, I dreamed about my father coming back for 15 or 20 years. I still do sometimes.
When your mother asks, 'Do you want a piece of advice?' it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.
Family life is the backbone of mankind, and that life is dependent upon mutual giving, sharing, and receiving from each other. It entails the proper use of each other's successes and failures for mutual up-building.
The family uses people, not for what they are, nor for what they are intended to be, but for what it wants them for- its own uses. It thinks of them not as what God has made them, but as the something which it has arranged that they shall be.
Once you're a mom, you've been split into two people. It's like Peter Pan and his shadow.
Motherhood is the one thing in all the world which most truly exemplifies the God-given virtues of creating and sacrificing. Though it carries the woman close to the brink of death, motherhood also leads her into the very realm of the fountains of life and makes her co-partner with the Creator in bestowing upon eternal spirits mortal life.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.