Good Salt

I went hunting this morning. Maryland has a late traditional season and so I decided to take my flintlock out. My plan was to hunt in an area with lots of deer and do my part in thinning the herd. The problem was that there was too much snow by the road where I wanted to park and I would have been in the way of traffic and the snowplows. So I went to a place close to home. Walking in the snow on a steep hillside was brutal. I didn't last long. The bitter cold didn't bother me much. But sliding and then breaking through the crust that was under eight inches of snow and then going through to the ground had me focusing on aches and pains more than the deer. 

With most of the deer having lost their antlers by this time of year anyways, I usually put more effort into finding sheds and scouting for spots to hunt next year than actually trying to shoot a deer. With all the snow making things so difficult, I decided it would be better to save my time for when there was less snow and so I headed back to the truck.

Although we had some snow earlier, the bulk of what we have now came last weekend. We were in Edison, NJ for The Fly Fishing Show. Our hope was to sell some of my glass fish and make some connections in the fishing world. That's when the snow started. Friday was pretty much a normal, slower weekday show according to other vendors, but Saturday was really slow for the weekend and by one o'clock in the afternoon hardly any show attendees were there, just vendors. Flights were already being cancelled for next week so a lot of the people from a distance caught early flights home. We saw on the news that at midnight New Jersey would be putting their roads under a State of Emergency and so we decided to skedaddle right after the show ended Saturday evening. It was one-thirty AM when we got home and the snow was dumping down pretty hard. It snowed all night and the next day, switching to sleet and freezing rain and then back to on and off snow and cold temperatures pretty much all of this past week. 

The people at the show were really nice. In some ways, it felt like a giant family. Heather, the lady beside us was a homeschool mom and Jenelle and her seemed to hit it off immediately. She had lost her dad several years back and decided to take over his outfitting business in Labrador, Canada. She was super nice to everyone, not just those she was hoping to make a dollar from. She showed people her pictures and encouraged people about fly-fishing. She seemed to go out of her way to connect with everyone. When she left she gave us a really nice fly-fishing book that her dad had written. 

Now l'm not a fly fisherman. I won't say that I've never been interested in fly fishing or that I've never tied a fly, or that I've never fly fished. I've done all three. But I've never gotten serious about it, studied it, or discussed it at length with others. I've always thought it would be neat to get into but I think that about lots of things. And really, I'm just too busy to take on another hobby.

And so I almost didn't read the book. But there was something about the lodge, or the fishing trips with her dad that had past customers stopping by and looking through the pictures and excitedly talking nonstop. What was it that made this remote place seem so popular?

This past week I've found myself reading Heather's dad's book. It's not so much a how-to book, but just a book full of simple fly-fishing stories and stories about catching big Atlantic Salmon. I'm not sure what the reason is, but for some reason I find myself thinking about and wanting to get into fly fishing, tying flies, and getting out on the river. So then I'll pick up the book and read another chapter.

A different book, but one I've also been reading is about Jesus calling us to be the salt of the earth. Salt with flavor. We often think that to be the salt of the earth we need to be hardworking and honest people, people that are good to have around. Maybe that's true, but there's more. We were meant to bring out the flavor. To make life more exciting, more vigorous, more full. Not just in our own lives, but in others lives too.

If we would live our lives more like Heather, going out of our way to make others feel special, loving everyone around us, making one person feel as equally loved as the next, telling people about our father’s exciting place, then maybe more people would want the exciting life, would want to read our father’s book too, and get more excited about walking whatever walk that he had for them. Of course I'm talking about God and the Bible.

After all, we’ve all been invited to be a part of that family too. Accepting that and being good salt, well that's totally up to us.

You can find more info about fly-fishing at one of Heather's lodges and catching big salmon in Labrador at www.labradorlodges.ca