Catch and Release

Just finished reading a book borrowed from a friend of a friend, Same Kind of Different As Me. The story of two men and their journey of friendship – Ron, white and rich, Denver, black and poor – the story of a rich man’s wife encouraging him to become involved in the homelessness issue and how her life inspired both men – and in particular their commitment to a lifelong friendship together.

At one point in the story – Ron’s wife, Debbie, after they’ve started volunteering at a community shelter, encourages him to start a friendship with this Denver guy and so he reluctantly invites him out for breakfast and asks him to be his friend. After Denver spends a week contemplating this request he meets up with Ron again and asks for clarification on the whole friendship deal… in his words – he’s noticed a practice in fishing called ‘catch and release’ – he wants no part in that kind of a friendship but if Ron is ready for the long haul then Denver is too –“ If you fishing for a friend you just gonn’ catch and release, then I ain’t got no desire to be your friend…but if you is lookin for a real friend, then I’ll be one. Forever.”

I attended a wedding of a friend yesterday, someone who I know through River’s Edge. A beautiful ceremony and celebration…of two young people formalizing their commitment of a lifelong friendship together…that whole 'two becoming one' business. No catch and release clause there either – its right there in the vows, ‘as long as we both shall live.’

What extravagant, ridiculous claims of commitment! I’ve been using the word ‘ridiculous’ a bit lately and it’s been misunderstood by several (unlike my other 50+ catch phrases my staff team has been collecting which have relatively clear meanings and apparently frequent usages).

‘Ridiculous,’ according to Merriam-Webster, is defined as: absurd or preposterous, contrary to reason, nature or common sense, unreasonable, unsound, or incongruous.

One of my favorite quotes by author Madeline L’Engle regarding Mary, mother of Jesus and the nativity event:

This is the irrational season where loves blooms bright and wild,
Had Mary been filled with reason, there’d have been no room for the child.

These bold claims of foreverness, commitment, perseverance….I love them. I honor them. I am challenged by them. I see Jesus in them. And to be honest…I long to partake in them. Somehow. No matter how ridiculous. Time to go fishing?