Fly Fishing and A Course in Miracles
What could fly fishing and A Course in Miracles possibly have in common?
At first glance, very little. One takes place knee-deep in a cold river, line cast into moving water. The other unfolds in the quiet of the mind, where thoughts are examined, undone, and gently replaced. One seeks a fish. The other seeks awakening. Yet beneath the surface, both are engaged in the same essential act: the attempt to make a connection.
Each one is looking to make a catch.
A fish for dinner.
Or an opening in a mind that once seemed closed.
I have stood in rivers that had no business welcoming a human being. Water so cold it numbed the legs within minutes. Fingers stiff, breath visible, snow falling quietly into currents that did not care. Hours passed with nothing to show for it. No strike. No movement. Just the sound of water and the growing temptation to quit.
And yet I stayed.
Not because I was disciplined by nature, but because something in me refused to leave empty-handed.
That same stubbornness followed me into A Course in Miracles.
Only here, the river was internal. The cold was not in the water but in the resistance of the mind. And instead of hours, it stretched into decades. Thirty years of what I can only call impatient growth. Wanting the result without fully embracing the process. Wanting clarity without surrendering the habits that obscured it.
Discipline was not my strength in either arena.
In fly fishing, I wanted the fish without mastering the cast. I wanted success without repetition. I wanted results without the quiet, often boring, refinement that the craft demands. And the river, like truth, has no interest in accommodating impatience.
The fish do not respond to frustration.
They respond to presence.
The same has been true with the Course.
You cannot force understanding. You cannot demand awakening on your timetable. You cannot wrestle peace into existence through effort alone. If anything, the harder you push, the more it slips away. The mind tightens, defends, resists. Just like a poorly cast line that lands too hard, scattering the very thing you hoped to attract.
Both paths require something I had to learn the hard way.
A quiet discipline.
Not rigid. Not forced. But steady.
The willingness to return. Again and again. To the river. To the lesson. To the moment in front of me. Even when nothing seems to be happening. Even when the results are invisible.
In fly fishing, there is a moment when everything aligns. The cast lands softly. The drift is natural. The fly moves as if it belongs there. And then, almost without warning, the connection happens. A subtle rise. A tightening of the line. For an instant, you are no longer separate from what you were seeking.
In the Course, the moments are quieter, but no less real.
A grievance dissolves without effort. A judgment falls away. A situation that once triggered reaction now passes without disturbance. No fireworks. No announcement. Just a subtle shift that tells you something has changed.
You did not force it.
You allowed it.
There is humility in both.
I have spent countless hours thinking I was in control, only to be reminded that I was not. The river does not yield to willpower. The mind does not awaken through demand. In both cases, you are participating in something larger than your own effort.
You learn to offer, not impose.
A cast.
A thought.
A question.
And then you wait.
Not passively, but attentively.
Over time, the goal itself begins to change.
The beginner in fly fishing wants to catch fish. The seasoned angler begins to value something else. The stillness. The rhythm. The simple act of being present in a place where nothing is required except attention.
The fish becomes secondary.
And in A Course in Miracles, the shift is even more profound. At first, we think we are trying to reach others, to open minds, to extend truth outward. But slowly, almost reluctantly, we begin to see that the real work is within. The “catch” is not another person’s agreement. It is the release of our own need to convince, to control, to be right.
What we thought we were seeking outside begins to dissolve.
Still, there is a difference.
In fly fishing, landing the fish is still part of the experience. There is a tangible result. In the Course, the idea of “landing” anything fades. True connection is not about bringing someone over to your side. It is the recognition that there are no sides to begin with.
And yet, the metaphor holds just long enough to teach something valuable.
Both require patience that does not come naturally.
Both demand a discipline that must be learned.
Both expose the futility of force.
And both, in their own way, invite us into presence.
I did not begin as a disciplined man.
I began as an impatient one.
Standing in freezing water, casting again and again, I learned something I could not have learned any other way. Sitting with the Course for thirty years, resisting, returning, resisting again, I learned the same lesson from a different direction.
Connection is not taken.
It is received.
Whether it is a trout rising from a cold river or a mind opening to a new idea, the principle is the same.
Be present.
Be patient.
And let what is already there reveal itself in its own time.