I Knew That, When Needed, Mountains Would

Each One Of Us Here Today Will At One Time In Our Lives Look Upon A Loved One Who Is In Need And Ask The Same Question: We Are Willing To Help, Lord, But What, If Anything, Is Needed? For It Is True We Can Seldom Help Those Closest To Us. Either We Don't Know What Part Of Ourselves To Give Or, More Often Than Not, The Part We Have To Give Is Not Wanted. And So It Is Those We Live With And Should Know Who Elude Us. But We Can Still Love Them - We Can Love Completely Without Complete Understanding.

In Our Family, There Was No Clear Line Between Religion And Fly Fishing. We Lived At The Junction Of Great Trout Rivers In Western Montana, And Our Father Was A Presbyterian Minister And A Fly Fisherman Who Tied His Own Flies And Taught Others. He Told Us About Christ's Disciples Being Fishermen, And We Were Left To Assume, As My Brother And I Did, That All First-class Fishermen On The Sea Of Galilee Were Fly Fishermen And That John, The Favorite, Was A Dry-fly Fisherman.

We Can Love Completely What We Cannot Completely Understand.

Of Course, Now I Am Too Old To Be Much Of A Fisherman, And Now Of Course I Usually Fish The Big Waters Alone, Although Some Friends Think I Shouldn't. Like Many Fly Fishermen In Western Montana Where The Summer Days Are Almost Arctic In Length, I Often Do Not Start Fishing Until The Cool Of The Evening. Then In The Arctic Half-light Of The Canyon, All Existence Fades To A Being With My Soul And Memories And The Sounds Of The Big Blackfoot River And A Four-count Rhythm And The Hope That A Fish Will Rise.

The Hardest Thing Usually To Leave Behind, As Was The Case Now, Can Loosely Be Called The Conscience.