Sunday, March 29, 2009

Catch and Release.....


One of my favorite parts of the book, "Same Kind of Different As Me" is this:

Ron asks Denver to be his friend. Denver takes time to think about what this means, and then tells Ron:

"Bout bein your friend."....."There's somethin I heard 'bout white folks that bothers me, and it has to do with fishin."...........He spoke slowly and deliberately, keeping me pinned with that eyeball....."I heard that when white folks go fishin they do somethin called 'catch and release'. ..........
"That really bothers me, " Denver went on. "I just can't figure it out. 'Cause when colored folks go fishin, we really proud of what we catch, and we take it and show it off to everybody that'll look. Then we eat what we catch......in other words, we use it to sustain us. So it really bothers me that white folks would go to all that trouble to catch a fish, then when they done caught it, just throw it back in the water."

........."So, Mr. Ron, it occurred to me: If you is fishin for a friend you just gon' catch and release, then I ain't got no desire to be your friend." ............

Suddenly his eyes gentled and he spoke more softly than before: "But if you is lookin for a real friend, then I'll be one. Forever."

*********
wow. I feel ashamed of the period in my life when I was only interested in winning people to my faith..........I actually had a new friend say directly to me, "I hope you are not my friend just so you can try to convert me to your beliefs......" that really convicted me about my motives of a lot of things I do.......

in the essence of "being fishers of men" , this is straight talk........I think of Jesus frying fish on the shoreline with his friends on his last moments on earth after his resurrection. Frying fish.........his straight talk was: "Do you love me?........feed my sheep."...........then I wonder, do sheep eat fish?

I am not being silly, seriously, I think we are to be spent for each other. That's what it's about. Not just proselyte, win others to our beliefs, and send them on their merry way to fight it out alone.......too much of that goes on. "I die daily that others might live." What would that look like in my life? That's what I need to work out.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for posting a review of “Same Kind of Different as Me.” I work with Thomas Nelson, and we would love to follow your blog and hear what readers think of this exciting book. I also want to let you know that Ron and Denver have just released a new book “What Difference Do It Make?” which updates readers on their activity since the last book came out. Please email me if you are interested in receiving a complimentary copy of the new book for review on your site.

Thanks!
Jodi Hughes
pubintern@thomasnelson.com