just follow

Just back from a trip, my first, to Montana. Part of me is still there, actually. The big, wide sky and clear water and a hundred shades of green and yellow and cows did my soul a world of good.

So did being with my good friend, Bart, one of that rarest of breeds, the married Catholic priest, and with his (publicly acknowledged!) wife and kids. Including our beloved god-daughter, whom we were overjoyed to meet for the first time since she was a little bug curled up in a sling hanging from her mama's neck. (It's funny how praying for somebody even from afar usually makes you come to love them.)

Thanks to Bart, my Big City family got to experience the joy of floating down the Bighorn River, one of the planet's best trout rivers.

Bart rowed us to all the right spots in the river, deftly avoided the half-hidden rocks and stumps, told us where to cast our spinners and how to bring them in. He even pulled out a few hooks for us, including the one embedded in my scalp by my enthusiastic son.

On our second trip, we pulled in 15 brown trout and rainbow trout and even a lowly and despised (by Bart) whitefish. I, who never has luck with the lure, started feeling like a bona fide angler.

The river was generous to us. And Bart was a good guide.

But perhaps the most transfixing experience was being out on a lake up in the soaring mountains just north of Yellowstone. East Rosebud Lake, got to via a very long, gravel road and after passing through Roscoe, Montana, where they reportedly sell T-shirts that say "Where the hell is Roscoe?"

In the morning all of us got out onto the clear, deep water with canoes and single and two-man kayaks. We stayed in close to the shore at first, for the sake of the little ones who were just learning, but we all got bolder as we got the hang of things.

Here again, Bart led the way, with my little girl and his little boy and Zinger the cold-hearted rat terrier on board his canoe. Bart pointed out fish swimming down below us. He took us up a tributary where it got so shallow we had to get out and pull for a bit, the melted snow so chilly it stung the ankles.

He also warned us away from the far end of the lake, where the outflow was so strong you were likely to get pulled out of the lake and never, ever return. Or at least that's how I told it to my boys.
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It seems to me that the life of faith is a bit like being out on the water with a good guide.

We have Jesus, and Mary, and all the saints to teach us where to go, where it is good to go. They are our guides. Just as my friend was intimately familiar with the river he has known from childhood, and the lake, too, Jesus and his saints are intimately familiar with the heart of God, with the good and gracious ways of the Lord.

If we follow where our guides go, do what they teach us to do, we can avoid the hurtful rocks of bad choices, avoid being drawn into situations we don't want to find ourselves in, avoid things that will pull us away from the love of God.

Likewise, we can find the spots "where the fish are"--where fruitfulness and joy await, where our efforts can make a real difference in the world. Become fishers of men, even.

We can try to make life up as we go along. Good luck with that.

Or, we can entrust ourselves to the guides God has provided for us.