[at-l] Meaning of life and all that stuff

[the_rev_mrf at kingcon.com (Martin Fors)]

>From what I've been reading on this list, some of us are telling how in
hiking we've found new meaning in our lives.  Thanks 'Vols and others for
telling the story of how you got 'hooked.'  Our hike on the AT is part of
the story.  This story is allegorical of my life and how I got 'hooked:'
rusty

            The story comes from a book called The River Why written by
David Duncan.  I have the book somewhere in a box in my loft.  It?s a
fishing story about a searching man named Gus who meets someone named Nick
who has peace in his life that he envies and wishes for himself.  Gus, one
night sees that Nick has deep scar in the palm of one of his hands.  His
curiosity gets the better of him and he asks Nick about the scar.  Nick?s
story goes this way:

            He was on a mine sweeper in the Second World War in the North
Sea.  He was an atheist.  The absurdity of war had made him that way.  There
was a chaplain on his ship and he and the chaplain used to argue constantly
about the existence of God.  The chaplain, he said, would offer simplistic
doctrinaire answers to his questions which only made him angrier and more
set in his atheism.  One night the ship struck a mine off the coast of
Norway.  It sank quickly.  Half the crew died in their sleep trapped beneath
the deck.  There was no time to launch lifeboats and Nick and the others on
the deck were thrown into the stormy angry sea.  He described what happened
in this way.

            "If I hadn't been in a daze I would have panicked and started
swimming and the movement would have squeezed the air pockets out of my
clothes and I would have frozen and drowned.  Instead I just floated there
almost peaceful feeling though a little sad because I knew that in fifteen
to twenty minutes we could all be dead.  And yet I felt no fear.

            "And then from the top of the next swell I saw a big trawler
bearing down on us.  Six men were on the deck manning two life savers and a
seventh man shouting orders.  Life savers were being thrown to our men but
some were too cold to grab hold.  I still have dreams about the way they
would quietly sink or drift away.

            "And then I saw this seventh man shouting something at me and
pointing to a fish pole that he was holding in his hands.  I thought,
"That's a nice fish pole.  Thanks for showing it to me."  Then he cast over
my head and the line fell right on top of me.  I tried to grab it but I
couldn't feel anything. I watched as the line ran through the fingers of my
hands as the boat moved away.  When I came to the end of the line there was
a big ring of cork tied to the end and it slipped through my hands.  It just
lay there in front of me.  The boat was moving away but the cork just lay
there because the fisherman was playing out the line keeping it in front of
me.  I grabbed the cork again and tried to curl my body around it, tried to
make it a part of me.  And that's when I saw it."

            "And Nick reached inside of his shirt and pulled out a heavy
gauge black five inch fish hook which he carried on a chain around his neck.
And Gus knew now how the story would end.

            "I know what hooks are for, but I lacked courage.  I tried to
slip my wrist through the hook, but as you can see it's too small.  There
was only one thing to do.  The boat was moving away.  It was my last chance
so I took the hook held the point steady as I could right against the palm
of my hand. The trawler disappeared over the wave and the pain shot up my
arm.  I was dragged down and then under the water.  I almost drowned.  And
the next thing I remember I was on the trawler throwing up."

"And he stopped his story there and turned to Gus and said, "I tell you Gus,
I was right about God.  God isn't just.  If God was just, I would have sunk
there in my North Sea stupidity.  But thank God, God is more than just.  I
don't know how to put it.  I'm still not religious but since this hook
pierced me the world hasn't been the same.  I just didn't know anything.
Nothing at all until God let me watch that line run away from me - my hands
all powerless and cold.  You're young Gus and I don't ever know if you've
been to that place beyond help or hope.  But I was there.  And I was sent
the help unlooked for and it came in the shape of a hook.  Nothing will ever
be the same again, nothing the way it was before, not for me." And then Nick
stretched his hand toward Gus and opened it - the scar was red in the
firelight.  "Behold son," he whispered.  "Behold the sign of the fisher's
love for a wooden-headed fool."