Morning Thoughts

I was reading David James Duncan today for my morning devotions. I realize that some might stumble and fall over that one; reading something other than the Bible for devotional purposes. But reading Duncan’s essays always, always, has the effect of making me think of and feel closer to God. That’s the point of a devotion, right? Anyway, he was describing one of his philosophical heroes, Henry Bugbee and his (Bugbee’s) insightful reflections on that gem of a book, A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean.
Bugbee was speaking of a scene, early in the book and movie, that results in a standoff between young Paul Maclean and this father; the oatmeal scene. Paul is told to eat his oats, just as Scots had been “happily consuming for thousands of years.” But Paul sets his face like flint toward Jerusalem and refuses. Bugbee said the scene was darkly prophetic because it revealed a violence between father and son that would overshadow their relationship. He summed it up this way: For all the love and admirable qualities of the father, it was, one felt, his dogmatic stance that prevented grace from flowing into the son…The father’s greatest strength – his rock-solid faith – somehow became a mere rock, a dead weight, when he tried to will it to his son. A rock-solid faith that somehow became a mere rock…a dead weight.
Maybe that’s where we’ve tripped up. What if we’ve looked at faith as something we could will or give to other people? What if faith is not something I can give away, but rather something you could only catch from me, if you chose? What if our greatest strength, our faith, becomes our greatest weakness when we try and will it into or onto other lives? How many times has the bottom line been that it has to be “this way” or it’s not faith…and the “this way” is all too frequently translated “my” way?
It’s interesting that the one place where Paul Maclean and his father connected was fly-fishing the Blackfoot; grace flowed in this fluid, moving rush of creation. Once they stepped out of that stream, things began to harden and stiffen and become obstacles to grace, love and even life…