The Fish at the Edge of the Lake

Walking past the four lakes on my seven mile walk this time of year is constantly bringing surprising sights . As the summer rains fill the lakes to overflowing they teem with all sorts of birds and fish . One of the smaller lakes is particuarly fasinating . As the lake rises to the edge of the grass , the bass come right up to the where the water meets the grass . I always pause for a few moments to observe the show . The small bass will come up to the edge and turn their fishy bodies almost sideways and stick their snouts out of the water to catch the insects which hover on the water's surface near the grass bank . Satisfying their hunger they opt for deeper and safer water . It amazes me to watch these fish we consider to be low on the intelligence scale figure a way to almost slither up the bank risking getting stuck to obtain breakfast . How curious I have always thought . A far cry from we humans . We tend to stay in our air conditioned environments whether house , car or grocery store . We complain how difficult life has become allowing negative thoughts and vibes to control our every waking moment . " Life is so stressful " , someone recently remarked to me . Why ? I wondered . We have all the modern amenities , electronics , gadgets , convieniences and conveyances . When our cell phone can't find service we are irritated and talk to it as if it were someone who has been rude to us . When our laptop crashes we curse and threaten to throw it out with Monday's trash . We race in our cars to the next red light and get angry if someone slows our progress so we can simply sit there and fumble with our hand held devices . But what of the fish ? Are they stressed out ? No , they seem to enjoy turning and squirming to obtain a meal only to go back to deeper and safer water . What if the bass stayed in deeper water and refused to venture forth to the shallows ? Surely they would starve . We too are starving not in a physical sense but in a spiritual way . We are caught up in our own little worlds refusing to strike out and explore our spiritual selves . We are indeed starving spiritually . We may even attend church or synagogue yet we have not fed ourselves spiritually . Perhaps we need to venture forth to the edge and be willing to turn our spiritual selves this way and that so we too might be able to feed ourselves before we go back to safer and deeper water . I have noticed some people get nervous even talking about spirituality . Fear of the unknown is a very powerful force in our lives . Fear mongering is a disease in our society . Just watch the news and you will be convinced you are the next target of the latest fear story . Watch the news , then breathe and go and watch the fish at the edge of the lake .