Worshiping at the Freshwater Temple
In the wake of the monster Hampton County tornado that killed five of our neighbors, I was taking solace, worshiping, and fishing at my favorite freshwater temple when my 8-year-old disciple hooked an epiphany and landed one of the secrets to understanding the Kingdom of Heaven. Well, sort of.
Author’s Note: Just before sunrise on Monday, April 13, 2020, a historic, record-breaking EF4 tornado swept through Hampton County and the South Carolina Lowcountry. The monster storm skirted our family farm, damaging outbuildings and sheds but sparing our home, before destroying several of our neighbors’ properties. We were the lucky ones.
All told, there were millions in damages and five lives lost in our county alone – almost all within five miles of where my children sleep. For days, as we struggled to regain electrical power and a sense of security in an uncertain world, we drove by the annihilated homes of our neighbors. My sons witnessed images they will ever forget: a makeshift roadside memorial where two people perished, children’s toys and teddy bears strewn and left hanging from tree limbs amid concertina wire from the federal prison miles away, entire homes scattered across corn fields and pine woods as if a warhead had reduced them to roadside litter.
We talked to our children often in the days and weeks of the aftermath – about life and death and hope and faith – and what waits for us on the other side.
(An infant’s crib juts out from the rubble of a home leveled by the April 2020 tornado in Hampton County, S.C. Photo provided.)
I was worshiping at my favorite freshwater temple when my 8-year-old fishing disciple hooked an epiphany and landed one of the secrets to understanding the Kingdom of Heaven. Well, sort of.
“Daddy, what’s the difference between God and Jesus?” the boy asked, tossing out a baited hook with his new Zebco and snatching it right back in like it was on water skis. The kid had no patience. I was still trying to master my fancy, expensive new baitcaster and the fine arts of “backlashing” and “bird nesting.” I had no patience, either.
“Who do I pray to? I need to pray to somebody so I can catch a big bass instead of all these tiny bream. Do you pray to God or do you pray to Jesus?”
“Son, that’s not how fishing works. And I’m pretty sure that’s not how prayer works, either,” I responded, tossing out a Brush Hog plastic bass lure and then untangling the ensuing bird nest from my baitcasting reel, while the bass mocked me in bubbles of laughter and the little bream kept chasing the kid’s water-ski worms.
These aren’t unusual questions for a child of that age, but this line of questioning isn’t exactly something a dad is prepared to answer quickly on the spot, especially while threading red worms onto a hook in search of bluegills. We had been talking a lot about God and heaven lately, and yet I was at a loss for the right answer that morning. But before the wisdom of the elders could come pouring from my aged and learned lips, the child had an answer of his own.
“Daddy, I think I figured it out: God created fish, but Jesus invented fishing.”
And there it was: perhaps the wisest, most inspired and spiritual thing I have ever heard anyone say. Words I will never forget. On that beautiful April morning, my youngest child arrived at this great truth. From the mouths of babes: God created fish, but Jesus invented fishing. In a simplistic sense, that sums up all an outdoorsman needs to know of Heaven and Earth, if you think about it.
(A makeshift cross marks a memorial where two men died in the April 2020 Hampton County tornado, less than five miles from the author’s home. Photo by the author.)
An Uncertain World
Like most men who seek salvation in the outdoors, I know a little something of Heaven here on Earth. The Great Beyond? Not so much. I don’t pretend to be enlightened, and I can’t part the Red Sea with my Quantum graphite fishing staff. Just as my children have questions about the spiritual world and what’s out there beyond this mortal life, so do I.
I know it’s a cliché, but I must truthfully admit that I strive to be more “spiritual” than religious. I’m no fan of organized religion, and you’ll never catch me in a mega-church. I think a person’s spirituality should be a personal thing – it’s up to each of us to find our own connection with The Great Creator. I do not denounce my native Christianity, but I also aspire to a set of spiritual beliefs more akin to the enlightened peacefulness of Zen Buddhism, more aligned with our pagan ancestors who worshiped and loved Mother Earth. I am a hybrid cross between Southern Baptist and nature-worshiping Wiccan. Thus, my beliefs are something I share with very few people because they would not understand or would pass judgment. You will never hear me to talk to anyone about God and “getting saved,” because I think it is up to each of us to find our own salvation, and there is more than one road to get there.
In the wake of this storm, and the pandemic, my kids have had a lot of questions about God and faith recently, considering everything that is happening here in our little corner of the S.C. Lowcountry and around the world. Like children everywhere, my child is afraid. With no school and no friends around, huddled on COVID lockdown in our dark home without electricity in the aftermath of a tornado, the future of their world, our world, looks bleak and uncertain. From plague to politics, from storms to social unrest, our world seems to be spiraling into the depths of despair and destruction, and perhaps both God and Jesus are busy right now, and Mother Earth seems angry.
No, my child, I don’t know the answers to all of life’s deep spiritual questions. I don’t know what the future will hold. But the next time I take you fishing, and this conversation arises, I know exactly what I will tell you.
(This family pond and cemetery sit on land that has been sacred to the author’s family for close to three hundred years. Photo by the author.)
Seek Solace at The Temple
When times are hard, and the world seems dark with death, worry and fear, I come to worship at places like this Freshwater Temple. This large family pond is close to home – only a few hundred yards through woods, fields and feedlots – and our family has been one with this sacred ground for close to three hundred years. Hugging a cove along its north bank is the pond house and a restored old farmhouse where my family gathers for reunions and holidays. A few steps off its east bank is Live Oak Cemetery, where my grandparents and other long-departed relatives lie resting in peace, waiting for me to join them.
Here, I can commune with both nature and my ancestors. God and Mother Earth live here, as do the spirits of elders long gone. This place speaks to me. The wind sings hymns and Psalms to me, my scripture is written in the ripples of the waves, as I commune with the sun and the water and the soil beneath my often-bare feet. My offerings are my heart, my time and attention; my sacrifices are these crickets and red worms, and for a little while the answers to the questions of life and the afterlife are in my tackle box, or stored in the life-giving waters of my live well. There are so many of life’s metaphors and lessons here, from the disciples in troubled waters and Moses parting the Red Sea, to the feeding of the multitudes with the loaves and fishes. With each trip I am treated to a new and inspiring sermon, and the troubled waters of my soul are calmed.
Here I am The Deacon of the Lake, taking attendance of God’s creatures and passing the offering plate. I can’t walk on water, but I always come away with peace and a bit of salvation in my spirit; renewed, refreshed and ready to survive and overcome the evils of the world for another day.
This is my Holy Land, my Temple, and you probably have one of your own. Be it freshwater or salt, low country or high mountain pass, many of us have found these wondrous places to commune with nature, the spiritual world, and thus our own souls. If not, I suggest you find one soon.
The Great Creator gave us fish, but maybe fishing was “invented” not just to feed our earthly bodies, but to take our minds off of things we cannot control and to bring us closer to the kingdoms of Heaven and Mother Earth.
There will always be questions about a Father and a Son in a place called Heaven, and I truly do not know the answers. But I do know there are a father and a son here at this Freshwater Temple, and if salvation does not lie in the fish beneath its waters, it can always be found in the time spent with your children and loved ones, teaching them to find their peace and salvation.
And if I know one other thing for certain, it is this: Jesus may have invented fishing, but the Devil himself invented baitcasting reels, bird nests and backlash. Amen.
A version of this story originally published in Sporting Classics Daily.