Fishing has but one aim
always the same – to catch fish.
Not wishing just to influence,
hence the rod, the line, the hook.
No book on how to do it
hits the fish on the head,
...dead.
Patiently I fish, with intent,
bent on catching them.
So men and women with time might bite.
Contrite in their sinfulness, they confess;
possess no thought except consuming need
to heed Jesus. Then comes the next part
heart renewal.
For once a fish realises,
he idolises the wrong deities,
pleases the wrong lords,
hoards the wrong things,
thinks the wrong thoughts,
ought to love others, not self.
That wealth is not for personal gain,
but to relieve pain. A renewal of values
looses his hold on the old life.
Knowing now that he had been dead
instead of, as he thought, alive.
That to survive, he must die… to self.
That health is rasping after life in God as after air.
Dare he do it?
The knife glistens in the sun.
Done with possessions
and other obsessions he willingly bares
and it tears him wide apart
His heart and all that was within spurts out –
a shout of freedom, released from bodily restraint,
the Saint lives again
in Him.
And as with death, there is no turning back.
now lacking the stomach for worldly ways,
in a daze of emptiness, innards gutted, yes, ripped apart,
but with a new heart, the new life he starts
set apart, one with God, at peace, with purpose and Godly desire
fired up – to do good works,
prepared by God,
Long ago.
