Sermon given by Rev. Frank Clarkson, July 2, 2023.

That’s a good song we just sang, and it seems like one of our favorites here, from the way we sing it. It resonates, doesn’t it? “There’s a river flowin’ in my soul.” When we sing it, most of the time I think of that river as something intangible; as a metaphor for the Spirit, flowing in us and around us, or as a feeling or a presence that we catch glimpses of from time to time.

But today I’m thinking of a specific river, that is always flowing in my soul, and heart and mind. It’s the Yellowstone River, which flows north through Yellowstone National Park, and into Montana. More specifically I’m thinking of a section of that river that flows through the Grand and Black Canyons, there in the Park. Because if I’m lucky I will be standing in that river tomorrow. God willing, and the airline gets me there. 

I love that wild river, especially down in the canyon, where it’s several miles from any road, and a pretty good hike out at the end of the day. Where you can sometimes spend a whole day without crossing paths with another angler. Which, out in that national park, in the summer, is saying something. I love it out there, and going there is like a pilgrimage for me. One of the guidebooks I have for fishing in the Park sums it up; it says, “Fishing in Yellowstone is like fishing in a church.”

I haven’t seen or fished that river for five years. Between several years of Covid, one summer with wildfires and epic heat, and last year’s devastating floods, I started to wonder if I would ever get back. And I have so wanted to, and I’ve wondered, why there? What is it about that hiking through that landscape, and fishing in that river, that feeds my soul in such deep and sustaining ways?

That river lives in my imagination in ways that I can’t explain. I have a picture of it on the front screen of my phone. I put another picture of it in the email that I sent out this morning. I look at those pictures sometimes, and think about the times and experiences I’ve had down there, in that canyon, and I can feel it tugging at my heart. Calling to me, kind of like what the choir sang yesterday at the memorial service for Sally Liebermann: “Come and find me.”

Believe it or not, my simple message for you today is really not about fishing—well,  not completely anyway! No, what I want to offer you is the encouragement to find, if you haven’t already, a place in the world that calls to you, that nourishes and sustains you, that feeds your soul and makes your heart sing. Maybe this reflection will serve to remind you of places that you love, and need to get back to. 

And it could be close to home—your own back yard, a garden you’ve cultivated, a forest or park nearby. It doesn’t have to be far away, or dramatic, and maybe closer is actually better. When you think of places that feed your soul, where you feel happy and at home, what comes to mind?

Anyone want to say?

(Folks responded by naming a number of places, near and far, that are sacred to them.)

We live in a world that is increasingly complex, and many of us spend too much of our time looking at pixels on a screen, rather than watching birds at the feeder, or lying in the grass, looking up as the clouds go by. There is a balm for our souls, there is solace for our spirits in the world all around us. 

We heard this in our reading this morning from David James Duncan:

Intense spiritual feelings were frequent visitors during my boyhood, 
but they did not come from churchgoing or from bargaining with God through prayer. 
The connection I felt to the Creator came, unmediated, from Creation itself.
The spontaneous gratitude I felt for birds and birdsong, 
tree-covered or snowcapped mountains, rivers and their trout, 
moon and starlight, 
summer winds on wilderness lakes, the same lakes silenced by winter snows,
spring’s resurrections after autumn’s mass deaths—
the intimacy, intricacy and interwovenness of these things—
became the spiritual instructors of my boyhood. 
In even the smallest suburban wilds I felt linked to powers and mysteries 
I could sincerely imagine calling the Presence of God.

Do you know what he’s talking about? Ca you picture your own holy places? You have felt this presence, and been in touch with this mystery, haven’t you? It can feel like church to me. David James Duncan would probably say I have it backwards—he wants church to feel like what he’s found in nature, and for him church has fallen short.

I’m grateful I don’t have to choose between the two. Because I sense they are related—that the mystery and awe we point to here, it isn’t different from what we find out there, in those places that are sacred to us.

Perhaps I love fishing because it takes me to those places. But I do love the fishing part too! Which, I will note, is not the same as catching. Perhaps one of the reasons I enjoy going fishing alone sometimes is that the catching becomes less important. Like what Thoreau said, that’s at the top of the order of service: “Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

If you have thought this morning about some place that is flowing in your soul, my next question is, why? What is that that you are you after? If you’re a gardener, is it as simple as cutting flowers to put in vase, or growing vegetables to to eat and share with others? Or is there more? Perhaps something less tangible too? If you’re a golfer, and I know some of you are, and love it, is at all about the score? I have to imagine it’s not. But what is it? What are you after?

What I’m really fishing for, I suppose, is an experience, a feeling, a connection. The solace of being alone and at home out in the world. Or the joy of sharing a day out there with someone I love. The thoughts and connections that come, unbidden, when the only sound is the wind in the trees, and the flowing water, a birdsong now and then. Standing in moving water, getting lost in the rhythm of casting and watching the fly float along, does feel like ritual, like sacrament; it feels like church to me. Sacred. Thomas McGuane writes, “The motto of every serious angler is “Nearer My God to Thee.”

And doesn’t that point toward what we are after? A deeper, and unmediated, experience of the holy? A deeper experience of being alive? And isn’t this season of summer just made for these wanderings, and this quest? 

In her poem, “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver wrote,

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Do you know how to find your holy place, how to be at home in the world? How to be “idle and blessed?” Couldn’t most of us use some time practicing this holy quest? This is a good season for that. For breathing in the warm air, remembering what it feels like to go barefoot. Taking the time to just be, at play in a place you find holy, at home in the world.

Amen.