I'm Going Out Fishing

“Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink”. The suffering caused by the Pakistan floods has touched us all, and I hope it will continue to do so after the media circus moves on. For the real tragedy is still to enfold, with summer crops destroyed and winter sowing impossible there is a real danger that famine will follow after flood and pestilence, and some fear that the dark forces of extremism will exploit the situation. The adjective “Biblical” gets bandied around these days to mean “epic in scale” (Jezzer is rather fond of it in his Top Gear car reviews…). Surely this is a flood of Biblical proportions and on the waters ride the four horsemen of the apocalypse – death, pestilence, famine and war. Where else can we turn to find words and images to describe this catastrophe, other than to the Bible?
Yet there is an imagine from our TV screens which sticks in my memory – an old man fishing in the flood waters from what remains of his house – and fishing very successfully too. It is a wonderful picture of human ingenuity, tenacity and adaptability in the face of devastation. I grew up in a family of inshore fishermen and to me, going fishing means falling back on something familiar and deeply ingrained, something you know how to do, something you can rely on when all else fails. When Peter the disciple faced all the confusion, loss, desperation and fear which followed the crucifixion of Jesus he said: “I’m going out fishing”, and I would have gladly joined in the answer of his friends - “we will go with you”. And that was when they met the risen Jesus.
Faced with the tragedy of Pakistan we need to go on fishing too by believing in the power of ordinary people to rebuild their lives through ordinary means – and that includes the ordinary means of help at our disposal through giving and praying.