There is something about fly fishing and religion (or “spirituality” or whatever you want to call it) that seem to go together. Of course, Norman Maclean spoke of that relationship in A River Runs Through It: “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing.”

I can’t help but think of the role that faith plays in the two pursuits.

Faith, especially as it relates to religion, is often defined as a belief in something that is not provable through the five senses.

Those of a religious bent make much of the faith necessary to be a true believer—since most do not profess to have physically witnessed God, they have faith that He exists and does the things they think He does. It is an emotion, the emotion known as desire. The practitioner of faith desires that the things believed are in fact reality—the promises of their devotion will come true. Many of those desired promises will not be realized in this life.

Hope is a similar emotion, but without as many religious overtones. Practitioners of hope also desire a certain outcome, which can be realized in this earthly life through one or more of the five senses. Yet they have no guarantee of its fruition.

As Solomon tells us, “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick” (Prov 13:12). To be constantly rebuffed in one’s hope could lead to frustration. And yet, the longer one waits for the perceived outcome, the greater the satisfaction when it finally arrives.

When I first picked up a fly rod, I kept at it for over a year before catching my first fish. It was the end of the second summer of fly fishing when I caught my first fish. I’m not sure why I kept at it so long, but I know I never got far enough along the “hope deferred” road that my heart became sick.

In Ted Leeson’s fine book, The Habit of Rivers, he points out how well Emily Dickinson seems to describe fly fishing when she says, “Hope is the thing with feathers/that perches in the soul…” Hope for a fly fisherman indeed perches in the soul, part of the very makeup of the psyche. And where is that hope focused? On the feather-wrapped hook floating thirty feet away. On the fish that will find the feathers.

Luckily, when I was learning to fly fish, it was with Chris, a friend who was also learning. The two of us were definitely the blind leading the blind. But it was encouraging: since neither of us were catching fish, we weren’t discouraged because of the other’s success and our own futility. We knew people fished in the river we were fishing in and we knew they caught fish. We had the hope that one day our skills would progress to such a point that we would realize our desire to catch fish. And, although sometimes it seemed like a lifetime, we were able to fully realize our hoped for desires in this lifetime.

It is the same hope that leads me again and again to the river, for without hope, their is no desire. Without desire, there is no anticipation. Without anticipation, there is no point—it would merely be a meandering walk through water waving a stick.

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune–without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

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