Teach Them How To Fish Quotes

Good coaches tell you where the fish are, great coaches teach you how to find them.

[Adapted and condensed Valedictorian speech:] I'm going to ask that you seriously consider modeling your life, not in the manner of the Dalai Lama or Jesus - though I'm sure they're helpful - but something a bit more hands-on, Carassius auratus auratus, commonly known as the domestic goldfish. People make fun of the goldfish. People don't think twice about swallowing it. Jonas Ornata III, Princeton class of '42, appears in the Guinness Book of World Records for swallowing the greatest number of goldfish in a fifteen-minute interval, a cruel total of thirty-nine. In his defense, though, I don't think Jonas understood the glory of the goldfish, that they have magnificent lessons to teach us. If you live like a goldfish, you can survive the harshest, most thwarting of circumstances. You can live through hardships that make your cohorts - the guppy, the neon tetra - go belly-up at the first sign of trouble. There was an infamous incident described in a journal published by the Goldfish Society of America - a sadistic five-year-old girl threw hers to the carpet, stepped on it, not once but twice - luckily she'd done it on a shag carpet and thus her heel didn't quite come down fully on the fish. After thirty harrowing seconds she tossed it back into its tank. It went on to live another forty-seven years. They can live in ice-covered ponds in the dead of winter. Bowls that haven't seen soap in a year. And they don't die from neglect, not immediately. They hold on for three, sometimes four months if they're abandoned. If you live like a goldfish, you adapt, not across hundreds of thousands of years like most species, having to go through the red tape of natural selection, but within mere months, weeks even. You give them a little tank? They give you a little body. Big tank? Big body. Indoor. Outdoor. Fish tanks, bowls. Cloudy water, clear water. Social or alone. The most incredible thing about goldfish, however, is their memory. Everyone pities them for only remembering their last three seconds, but in fact, to be so forcibly tied to the present - it's a gift. They are free. No moping over missteps, slip-ups, faux pas or disturbing childhoods. No inner demons. Their closets are light filled and skeleton free. And what could be more exhilarating than seeing the world for the very first time, in all of its beauty, almost thirty thousand times a day? How glorious to know that your Golden Age wasn't forty years ago when you still had all you hair, but only three seconds ago, and thus, very possibly it's still going on, this very moment." I counted three Mississippis in my head, though I might have rushed it, being nervous. "And this moment, too." Another three seconds. "And this moment, too." Another. "And this moment, too.

Simply put, good coaches make sure you know how to use both hands, how to make proper reads, how to understand the game. Good coaches tell you where the fish are, great coaches teach you how to find them. That’s the same at every level.

The bonds between people had to be a narcotic. You unwittingly became dependent all the while your heart deteriorates inside out. And then you ended up needing to rely on others and you eventually become unable to do things by yourself. Then, was it possible that by intending to lend a hand to people that I was actually making them suffer instead? Was I giving birth to people who couldn’t stand on their own two feet unless they had help from someone? Even though we were supposed to teach them how to catch fish and not give them one. Something that could be easily given to someone was surely a fake. Something that could easily be given away was surely something that could easily be taken away by someone.

I'm pretty strong," he says. "I could cart you around on my back all day long. Hey, I could even teach you to swim." 'Tisn't true," she replies haughtily. "How could you do that?" I know how--with floats, to keep your feet up." She shakes her head. He puffs out his cheeks and whistles soundlessly. "I go fishing with my father on Sundays. I can bring you back a hake big as this!" He spreads his arms to show a fish about the size of a whale. "You like hake?" She shakes her head. Bass?" Same response. Crab claws? We got a lot of them, in the nets." She turns her chair around and pushes the wheels along--now she's the one who goes away. Snobby Parisienne!" he yells after her. "And to think I almost fell for you! I smell too fishy is that it?

No one wants to be poor. In my view, and the view of many authors who have focused on poverty and practical solutions to it, we need to move beyond the industrial-era paradigm of giving them fish, or even the information-era paradigm of teaching them how to fish, and instead move closer to the cosmic paradigm of giving them the tools with which to create their own ingenious means of addressing their problems in their cultural context and their time, while drawing--at their convenience, not ours--on our dispersed knowledge.

We have always called ourselves a tax-exempt 501c3 antiprofit organization. We wrestle to free ourselves from macrocharity and distant acts of charity that serve to legitimize apathetic lifestyles of good intentions but rob us of the gift of community. We visit rich people and have them visit us. We preach, prophesy, and dream together about how to awaken the church from her violent slumber. Sometimes we speak to change the world; other times we speak to keep the world from changing us. We are about ending poverty, not simply managing it. We give people fish. We teach them to fish. We tear down the walls that have been built up around the fish pond. And we figure out who polluted it. We fight terrorism—the terrorism within each of us, the terrorism of corporate greed, of American consumerism, of war. We are not pacifist hippies but passionate lovers who abhor passivity and violence. We spend our lives actively resisting everything that destroys life, whether that be terrorism or the war on terrorism. We try to make the world safe, knowing that the world will never be safe as long as millions live in poverty so the few can live as they wish. We believe in another way of life—the kingdom of God—which stands in opposition to the principalities, powers, and rulers of this dark world (Eph. 6:12).3

AUTUMN WAS COMING; the evergreens might not have noticed, but the sycamores did. They flashed thousands of golden leaves across slate-gray skies. Late one afternoon, after the lesson, Tate lingering when he should have left, he and Kya sat on a log in the woods. She finally asked the question she’d wanted to ask for months. “Tate, I appreciate your teaching me to read and all those things you gave me. But why’d you do it? Don’t you have a girlfriend or somebody like that?” “Nah—well, sometimes I do. I had one, but not now. I like being out here in the quiet and I like the way you’re so interested in the marsh, Kya. Most people don’t pay it any attention except to fish. They think it’s wasteland that should be drained and developed. People don’t understand that most sea creatures—including the very ones they eat—need the marsh.” He didn’t mention how he felt sorry for her being alone, that he knew how the kids had treated her for years; how the villagers called her the Marsh Girl and made up stories about her. Sneaking out to her shack, running through the dark and tagging it, had become a regular tradition, an initiation for boys becoming men. What did that say about men? Some of them were already making bets about who would be the first to get her cherry. Things that infuriated and worried him. But that wasn’t the main reason he’d left feathers for Kya in the forest, or why he kept coming to see her. The other words Tate didn’t say were his feelings for her that seemed tangled up between the sweet love for a lost sister and the fiery love for a girl. He couldn’t come close to sorting it out himself, but he’d never been hit by a stronger wave. A power of emotions as painful as pleasurable.

And when they start talking, and they always do, you find that each of them has a story they want to tell. Everyone, no matter how old or young, has some lesson they want to teach. And I sit there and listen and learn all about life from people who have no idea how to live it. Nobody knows how to just shut the fuck up and look out the window anymore. The bathrooms are tiny and filthy and you have no choice but to piss all over yourself when the bus swerves, but the streetlights look like blurred stars exploding in the window when it rains at night, and you can sleep knowing that if there’s an accident and everyone on the bus dies it wasn’t your fault. Someone fat and snoring will sometimes sit beside you and sweat on your shoulder even though it’s twelve degrees outside, and someone else with a big head shaped like an onion and dirty hair that smells like fish sticks will sit in front of you and recline their seat into your lap. And you’ll be trapped and sleepless and sad for the entire ride. But then other times you get two whole seats to yourself, and when that becomes your idea of luxury you know you’ve found something that no one else is even looking for, and if you gave it to them for Christmas they’d return it the next morning as soon as the stores opened. And then you get to think of yourself like the little drummer boy, playing for Jesus even though he’s too young to understand, even though nobody in Bethlehem really likes percussion and they think you’re a cheap ass for not bringing gold or frankincense. And it’s a shame when you realize that you won’t get to be in the Bible, and it doesn’t seem right. But then nobody gets to be in the Bible anymore, no matter who they are or what they do, and the sooner you realize that the easier it all becomes. But it’s still a shame.

You're trying to kiss Emma?" Rayna says, incredulous. "But you haven't even sifted yet, Galen." "Sifted?" Emma asks. Toraf laughs. "Princess, why don't we go for a swim? You know that storm probably dredged up all sorts of things for your collection." Galen nods a silent thank you to Toraf as he ushers his sister into the living room. For once, he's thankful for Rayna's hoard of human relics. He almost had to drag her to shore by her fin to get past all the old shipwrecks along this coast. "We'll split up, cover more ground," Rayna's saying as they leave. Galen feels Emma looking at him, but he doesn't acknowledge her. Instead, he watches the beach as Toraf and Rayna disappear in the waves, hand in hand. Galen shakes his head. No one should feel sorry for Toraf. He knows just exactly what he's doing. Something Galen wishes he could say of himself. Emma puts a hand on his arm-she won't be ignored. "What is that? Sifted?" Finally he turns, meets her gaze. "It's like dating to humans. Only, it goes a lot faster. And it has more of a purpose than humans sometimes do when they date." "What purpose?" "Sifting is our way of choosing a life mate. When a male turns eighteen, he usually starts sifting to find himself a companion. For a female whose company he will enjoy and ho will be suitable for producing offspring." "Oh," she says, thoughtful. "And...you haven't sifted yet?" He shakes his head, painfully aware of her hand still on his arm. She must realize it at the same time, because she snatches it away. "Why not?" she says, clearing her throat. "Are you not old enough to sift?" "I'm old enough," he says softly. "How old are you, exactly?" "Twenty." He doesn't mean to lean closer to her-or does he? "Is that normal? That you haven't sifted yet?" He shakes his head. "It's pretty much standard for males to be mated by the time they turn nineteen. But my responsibilities as ambassador would take me away from my mate too much. It wouldn't be fair to her." "Oh, right. Keeping a watch on the humans," she says quickly. "You're right. That wouldn't be fair, would it?" He expects another debate. For her to point out, as she did last night, that if there were more ambassadors, he wouldn't have to shoulder the responsibility alone-and she would be right. But she doesn't debate. In fact, she drops the subject altogether. Backing away from him, she seems intent on widening the space he'd closed between them. She fixes her expression into nonchalance. "Well, are you ready to help me turn into a fish?" she says, as if they'd been talking about this the whole time. He blinks. "That's it?" "What?" "No more questions about sifting? No lectures about appointing more ambassadors?" "It's not my business," she says with an indifferent shrug. "Why should I care whether or not you mate? And it's not like I'll be sifting-or sifted. After you teach me to sprout a fin, we'll be going our separate ways. Besides, you wouldn't care if I dated any humans, right?" With that, she leaves him there staring after her, mouth hanging open. At the door, she calls over her shoulder, "I'll meet you on the beach in fifteen minutes. I just have to call my mom and check in and change into my swimsuit." She flips her hair to the side before disappearing up the stairs. He turns to Rachel, who's hand-drying a pan to death, eyebrows reaching for her hairline. He shrugs to her in askance, mouth still ajar. She sighs. "Sweet pea, what did you expect?" "Something other than that.

Because this land they live in is a land of missing things. A land stripped of its gold, its rivers, its buffalo, its Indians, its tiger, its jackals, its birds and its green and its living. To move through this land and believe Ba's tales is to see each hill as a burial mound with its own crown of bones. Who could believe that and survive? Who could believe that and keep from looking, as Ba and Sam do, always toward the past? Letting it drag behind them. Letting it make them into fools. And so Lucy fears that unwritten history. Easier to dismiss all Ba's tales as tall ones - because believe, and where does it end? If she believes that tigers live, then does she believe that Indians are hunted and dying? If she believes in fish the size of men, does she believe in men who string up others like linefuls of catch? Easier to avoid that history, unwritten as it is except in the soughing of dry grass, in the marks of lost trails, in the rumors from the mouths of bored men and mean girls, in the cracked patterns of buffalo bone. Easier by far to read the history that Teacher Leigh teaches, those names and dates orderly as bricks, stacked to build a civilization.

If you will study the history of Christ's ministry from Baptism to Ascension, you will discover that it is mostly made up of little words, little deeds, little prayers, little sympathies, adding themselves together in unwearied succession. The Gospel is full of divine attempts to help and heal, in the body, mind and heart, individual men. The completed beauty of Christ's life is only the added beauty of little inconspicuous acts of beauty -- talking with the woman at the well; going far up into the North country to talk with the Syrophenician woman; showing the young ruler the stealthy ambition laid away in his heart, that kept him out of the kingdom of Heaven; shedding a tear at the grave of Lazarus; teaching a little knot of followers how to pray; preaching the Gospel one Sunday afternoon to two disciples going out to Emmaus; kindling a fire and broiling fish, that His disciples might have a breakfast waiting for them when they came ashore after a night of fishing, cold, tired, discouraged. All of these things, you see, let us in so easily into the real quality and tone of God's interests, so specific, so narrowed down, so enlisted in what is small, so engrossed in what is minute.

I nod slowly again, and then say, “And how much of that wealth have you personally used to house and feed and clothe and protect and teach members of your community? How much of that money have you given to the Gifted community? People that are completely separate and different to your own, but who may have requirements that are not being met?” She frowns deeper at me and blusters, “We live in a society in which people are responsible for taking care of themselves. I owe them nothing.” I nod slowly to her. “Yes, and my community is at war with itself, as well as members of your own community who have chosen to pick a side. So, instead of running away with my money to somewhere safer, I have chosen to stay and protect as many people as I can. I've put my money where my mouth is. I will not be told by some half-bred hick that I am incapable of doing my job. Someday, when you choose a cause that actually means something to you, and you do put your money behind it, then maybe I'll listen. But I don't foresee that day coming anytime soon, do you?” Her mouth opens and shuts a few times as she gapes at me like a fish, and I give her one last decisive nod as I skirt around her and out of the building,

Leaves are also teaching scientists about more effective capture of wind energy. Wind energy offers great promise, but current turbines are most effective when they have very long blades (even a football field long). These massive structures are expensive, hard to build, and too often difficult to position near cities. Those same blades sweep past a turbine tower with a distinctive thwacking sound, so bothersome that it discourages people from having wind turbines in their neighborhoods. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also estimates that hundreds of thousands of birds and bats are killed each year by the rotating blades of conventional wind turbines. Instead, inspired by the way leaves on trees and bushes shake when wind passes through them, engineers at Cornell University have created vibro-wind. Their device harnesses wind energy through the motion of a panel of twenty-five foam blocks that vibrate in even a gentle breeze. Although real leaves don't generate electrical energy, they capture kinetic energy. Similarly, the motion of vibro-wind's "leaves" captures kinetic energy, which is used to excite piezoelectric cells that then emit electricity. A panel of vibro-wind leaves offers great potential for broadly distributed, low noise, low-cost energy generation.

At the time of the Fourth Fire, the history of another people came to be braided into ours. Two prophets arose among the people, foretelling the coming of the light-skinned people in ships from the east, but their visions differed in what was to follow. The path was not clear, as it cannot be with the future. The first prophet said that if the offshore people, the zaaganaash, came in brotherhood, they would bring great knowledge. Combined with Anishinaabe ways of knowing, this would form a great new nation. But the second prophet sounded a warning: He said that what looks like the face of brotherhood might be the face of death. These new people might come with brotherhood, or they might come with greed for the riches of our land. How would we know which face is the true one? If the fish became poisoned and the water unfit to drink, we would know which face they wore. And for their actions the zaaganaash came to be known instead as chimokman—Vne long-knife people. The prophecies described what eventually became history. They warned the people of those who would come among them with black robes and black books, with promises of joy and salvation. The prophets said that if the people turned against their own sacred ways and followed this black-robe path, then the people would suffer for many generations. Indeed, the burial of our spiritual teachings in the time of the Fifth Fire nearly broke the hoop of the nation. People became separated from their homelands and from each other as they were forced onto reservations. Their children were taken from them to learn the zaaganaash ways. Forbidden by law to practice their own religion, they nearly lost an ancient worldview. Forbidden to speak their languages, a universe of knowing vanished in a generation. The land was fragmented, the people separated, the old ways blowing away in the wind; even the plants and animals began to turn their faces away from us. The time was foretold when the children would turn away from the elders; people would lose their way and their purpose in life. They prophesied that, in the time of the Sixth Fire, “the cup of life would almost become the cup of grief.” And yet, even after all of this, there is something that remains, a coal that has not been extinguished. At the First Fire, so long ago, the people were told that it is their spiritual lives that will keep them strong. They say that a prophet appeared with a strange and distant light in his eyes. The young man came to the people with the message that in the time of the seventh fire, a new people would emerge with a sacred purpose. It would not be easy for them. They would have to be strong and determined in their work, for they stood at a crossroads. The ancestors look to them from the flickering light of distant fires. In this time, the young would turn back to the elders for teachings and find that many had nothing to give. The people of the Seventh Fire do not yet walk forward; rather, they are told to turn around and retrace the steps of the ones who brought us here. Their sacred purpose is to walk back along the red road of our ancestors’ path and to gather up all the fragments that lay scattered along the trail. Fragments of land, tatters of language, bits of songs, stories, sacred teachings—all that was dropped along the way. Our elders say that we live in the time of the seventh fire. We are the ones the ancestors spoke of, the ones who will bend to the task of putting things back together to rekindle the flames of the sacred fire, to begin the rebirth of a nation.

In 1995, the gray wolf was reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park after a seventy-year hiatus. Scientists expected an ecological ripple effect, but the size and scope of the trophic cascade took them by surprise.7 Wolves are predators that kill certain species of animals, but they indirectly give life to others. When the wolves reentered the ecological equation, it radically changed the behavioral patterns of other wildlife. As the wolves began killing coyotes, the rabbit and mouse populations increased, thereby attracting more hawks, weasels, foxes, and badgers. In the absence of predators, deer had overpopulated the park and overgrazed parts of Yellowstone. Their new traffic patterns, however, allowed the flora and fauna to regenerate. The berries on those regenerated shrubs caused a spike in the bear population. In six years’ time, the trees in overgrazed parts of the park had quintupled in height. Bare valleys were reforested with aspen, willow, and cottonwood trees. And as soon as that happened, songbirds started nesting in the trees. Then beavers started chewing them down. Beavers are ecosystem engineers, building dams that create natural habitats for otters, muskrats, and ducks, as well as fish, reptiles, and amphibians. One last ripple effect. The wolves even changed the behavior of rivers—they meandered less because of less soil erosion. The channels narrowed and pools formed as the regenerated forests stabilized the riverbanks. My point? We need wolves! When you take the wolf out of the equation, there are unintended consequences. In the absence of danger, a sheep remains a sheep. And the same is true of men. The way we play the man is by overcoming overwhelming obstacles, by meeting daunting challenges. We may fear the wolf, but we also crave it. It’s what we want. It’s what we need. Picture a cage fight between a sheep and a wolf. The sheep doesn’t stand a chance, right? Unless there is a Shepherd. And I wonder if that’s why we play it safe instead of playing the man—we don’t trust the Shepherd. Playing the man starts there! Ecologists recently coined a wonderful new word. Invented in 2011, rewilding has a multiplicity of meanings. It’s resisting the urge to control nature. It’s the restoration of wilderness. It’s the reintroduction of animals back into their natural habitat. It’s an ecological term, but rewilding has spiritual implications. As I look at the Gospels, rewilding seems to be a subplot. The Pharisees were so civilized—too civilized. Their religion was nothing more than a stage play. They were wolves in sheep’s clothing.8 But Jesus taught a very different brand of spirituality. “Foxes have dens and birds have nests,” said Jesus, “but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”9 So Jesus spent the better part of three years camping, fishing, and hiking with His disciples. It seems to me Jesus was rewilding them. Jesus didn’t just teach them how to be fishers of men. Jesus taught them how to play the man! That was my goal with the Year of Discipleship,

The "kindness of giving you a body" means that, at first, our bodies are not fully matured nor are our pleasant complexions. We started in the mother's womb as just an oval spot and oblong lump, and from there we developed through the vital essence of the mother's blood and flesh. We grew through the vital essence of her food while she endured embarrassment, pain, and suffering. After we were born, from a small worm until we were fully grown, she developed our body. The "kindness of undergoing hardships for you" means that, at first, we were not wearing any clothes with all their ornamentation, did not possess any wealth, and did not bring any provisions. We just came with a mouth and stomach-empty-handed, without any material things. When we came to this place where we knew no one, she gave food when we were hungry, she gave drink when we were thirsty, she gave clothes when we were cold, she gave wealth when we had nothing. Also, she did not just give us things she did not need. Rather, she has given us what she did not dare use for herself, things she did not dare eat, drink, or wear for herself, things she did not dare employ for the happiness of this life, things she did not dare use for her next life's wealth. In brief, without looking for happiness in this life or next, she nurtured her child. She did not obtain these things easily or with pleasure. She collected them by creating various negative karmas, by sufferings and hardships, and gave them all to the child. For example, creating negative karma: she fed the child through various nonvirtuous actions like fishing, butchering, and so forth. For example, suffering: to give to the child, she accumulated wealth by working at a business or farm and so forth, wearing frost for shoes, wearing stars as a hat, riding on the horse of her legs, her hem like a whip, giving her legs to the dogs and her face to the people. Furthermore, she loved the unknown one much more than her father, mother, and teachers who were very kind to her. She watched the child with eyes of love, and kept it warm in soft cloth. She dandled the child in her ten fingers, and lifted it up in the sky. She called to it in a loving, pleasant voice, saying, "Joyful one, you who delight Mommy. Lu, lu, you happy one," and so forth. The "kindness of giving you life" means that, at first, we were not capable of eating with our mouth and hands nor were we capable of enduring all the different hardships. We were like feeble insects without strength; we were just silly and could not think anything. Again, without rejection, the mother served us, put us on her lap, protected us from fire and water, held us away from precipices, dispelled all harmful things, and performed rituals. Out of fear for our death or fear for our health, she did divinations and consulted astrologers. Through many ritual ceremonies and many other different things, in inconceivable ways, she protected the life of her child. The "kindness of showing you the world" means that, at first, we did not come here knowing various things, seeing broadly, and being talented. We could only cry and move our legs and hands. Other than that, we knew nothing. The mother taught us how to eat when we did not know how. She taught us how to wear clothes when we did not know how. She taught us how to walk when we did not know how. She taught us how to talk when we did not know how to say "Mama," or "Hi," and so forth. She taught us various skills, creative arts, and so forth. She tried to make us equal when we were unequal, and tried to make the uneven even for us. Not only have we had a mother in this lifetime, but from beginningless samsara she served as a mother countless times.

While I was doing my fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry, my family and I lived in Hawaii. When my son was seven years old, I took him to a marine life educational and entertainment park for the day. We went to the killer whale show, the dolphin show, and finally the penguin show. The penguin’s name was Fat Freddie. He did amazing things: He jumped off a twenty-foot diving board; he bowled with his nose; he counted with his flippers; he even jumped through a hoop of fire. I had my arm around my son, enjoying the show, when the trainer asked Freddie to get something. Freddie went and got it, and he brought it right back. I thought, “Whoa, I ask this kid to get something for me, and he wants to have a discussion with me for twenty minutes, and then he doesn’t want to do it!” I knew my son was smarter than this penguin. I went up to the trainer afterward and asked, “How did you get Freddie to do all these really neat things?” The trainer looked at my son, and then she looked at me and said, “Unlike parents, whenever Freddie does anything like what I want him to do, I notice him! I give him a hug, and I give him a fish.” The light went on in my head. Whenever my son did what I wanted him to do, I paid little attention to him, because I was a busy guy, like my own father. However, when he didn’t do what I wanted him to do, I gave him a lot of attention because I didn’t want to raise a bad kid! I was inadvertently teaching him to be a little monster in order to get my attention. Since that day, I have tried hard to notice my son’s good acts and fair attempts (although I don’t toss him a fish, since he doesn’t care for them) and to downplay his mistakes. We’re both better people for it. I collect penguins as a way to remind myself to notice the good things about the people in my life a lot more than the bad things. This has been so helpful for me as well as for many of my patients. It is often necessary to have something that reminds us of this prescription. It’s not natural for most of us to notice what we like about our life or what we like about others, especially if we unconsciously use turmoil to stimulate our prefrontal cortex. Focusing on the negative aspects of others or of your own life makes you more vulnerable to depression and can damage your relationships.

mentees to focus their time and energy on the causes (for example, replacing a limiting belief with an empowering one or sharpening practical relationship building and oratory skills), not on the effects (for example, spending time and energy worrying or feeling sorry for yourself or being consumed with negative self-talk about not getting a desired role at a target organization). In addition to nourishing their mind and spirit, I teach them on how to fish and fly better so they can soar, adding to their arsenal of confidence-enhancing achievements and skills. With sound causes, positive effects will typically take care of themselves. It’s wise to track both causes and effects. Doing so will help you learn valuable patterns of

Teach men how to fish, but also teach them how to preserve fish.

As she was getting ready to leave, Alexander sat and smoked. “Why do you always have to go to your stupid sewing circle?” “Not always. It’s just for an hour.” Tatiana smiled, wrapping her arms around him. “You can wait an hour, can’t you, Captain?” she whispered huskily. “Mmm,” he said, holding her with one arm. His cigarette was in the other hand. “Can’t they manage without you, for God’s sake?” She kissed his damp forehead. “Shura, have you noticed the days have been getting hotter?” “I noticed. Can’t you just sew here? I brought your sewing machine, your desk. I’ve made you a stool. I see you sewing; just the other day you were sewing all those dark clothes. What was that?” “Nothing, just something silly.” “Well, continue sewing something silly here.” “I’m teaching them how to fish, Alexander.” “What?” “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day,” said Tatiana. “Teach him how to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime.” Shaking his head and sighing, Alexander said, “All right. I’ll come with you.” “Stop it. Church is one thing, but no soldier husband of mine is going to a sewing circle. It’ll unman you. Besides, you already know how to fish. Stay home. Play with your rifle or something. I’ll be back in an hour. Do you want something delicious to eat before I go?” “Yes, and I know exactly what I want,” he said, laying her down on the blanket in the grass. The sun burned over their heads. “Shura, I’m going to be late.” “Tell them your husband was starving and you had to feed him.

I think it is easier to take someone in the fishing industry and teach him about currency trading,” he says, “than to take someone from the banking industry and teach them how to fish.” He then explained why fishing

sea once more; where red deserts roll back across the landscape to reveal beneath them green fields and villages; and in which one day your wife is bounding through life, and the next can barely stand. In this way geology teaches us to see ourselves as we really are: finite landmarks within an infinitely shifting world. When we use the phrase ‘natural disaster’, geologists remember that these events are only coloured disasters for and by humans. When we talk about ice ages or huge storms at seas, they are not disasters themselves; the disasters are that humans become involved in them. They are just how the world goes.

See that before you teach one how to fish, there is water waiting for him to fish; or before you teach any how to farm, there is some land waiting for them to farm. The woes of the world are not dearth of skills, but lack of areas to apply the skills. Greed has gone so unbridled and heartless, world is heaven to few, hell to countless.

Lesson Focus God shows compassion where he wills. • God is responsive to small steps in the right direction. • God’s compassion is not earned and never deserved. Lesson Application God sometimes shows compassion on us by giving us a second chance when we don’t deserve it. • We respond to God’s Word by taking steps in the right direction. • We recognize that God’s compassion is great. Biblical Context The book of Jonah is about how people respond to the Lord and how the Lord responds to them. Both the sailors and the Ninevites, though pagans, were responsive to what they saw the Lord doing. Jonah, a prophet who should have known better, was the least responsive and had to be taught a lesson about God’s compassion. Interpretational Issues in the Story Jonah’s prophetic mission (Jonah 3:4). Jonah was sent to denounce Nineveh, not to save it. His word to them was a word of judgment. He did not even name Yahweh and he did not confront them with their offenses, instruct them as to what they ought to do, or offer any hope for them to avoid the judgment. If the text does not offer this information, we cannot read those things between the lines and assume that they occurred. Great fish (Jonah 1:17). Nothing in the text indicates the species of the creature, and while a whale cannot be ruled out (they would not have distinguished sea-dwelling mammals from fish), the text is vague. Fish as rescue, not punishment (Jonah 2:6, 9). Jonah’s prayer demonstrates that he saw the fish as deliverance, not judgment. He was drowning, and the Lord used the fish to save his life. Jonah’s prayer (Jonah 2:4, 7–9). Jonah offered no repentance and did not ask forgiveness when he prayed inside the fish. He assumed that since the Lord had saved him from death, he had been restored to favor. He spoke ill of those who worship idols, which apparently included the sailors (whose response had been far better than his own) as if he was insisting, “At least I’m not a pagan idol-worshiper!” He made no mention of his disobedience and indicated no willingness to go to Nineveh. The vows he referred to (v. 9) would have involved sacrifices of thanksgiving at the temple for his rescue. This prayer was a farce, and Jonah was still unchanged (as the rest of the book demonstrates). Ninevite response (Jonah 3:5). The Ninevites believed what Jonah said, but that does not mean they converted to his God. He never even told them the identity of his God, and there is no indication that they got rid of their idols or understood the law. They repented, but any Assyrian would have done so under these circumstances. If they had been convinced that some god was angry at them and about to destroy them, they would have sought to appease that god. That is how they took Jonah’s warning. In the ancient world people believed that there were all sorts of powerful gods, but they only worshiped the ones they believed had power over their lives. Jonah was informing them that a God they had not recognized had noticed them and was going to act against them, and they were grateful for this information. Likely they checked Jonah’s message against their omens and afterward were eager to respond. Sackcloth (Jonah

Biddy Chambers did. Had she given up, no one would have criticized her. Had she walked away, no one would have thought less of her. Her God-given assignment was to partner with her husband in teaching the Bible. They met in 1908, and by 1910 they were married, living in London, and busy about their dream of starting a Bible college. They purchased a large home and made rooms available for students and missionaries on furlough. Biddy’s training was in stenography. She took careful notes of her husband’s lectures and turned them into correspondence courses. At the outbreak of World War I, he felt a call to minister to soldiers stationed in Egypt. He and Biddy and their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter moved to the Middle East, where he took a position as a chaplain. Their ministry continued. He taught, she transcribed. He lectured; she captured his messages. It was a perfect partnership. Then came the setback. Her husband’s complications from appendicitis rendered Biddy a widow. Her husband died at the age of forty-three. She buried him in Egypt and returned to London to face this question: How could she partner with her husband if her husband was gone? All dreams of a teaching ministry would need to be abandoned, right? No. Biddy chose to give God her loaves and fishes. She set about the work of turning her husband’s notes into pamphlets and mailing them to friends and acquaintances. Eventually they were compiled into a book. My Utmost for His Highest was published in 1927.5

A growing number of educational theorists over the last couple of decades have made the point that facts come and go, while what endures, what we really require, is the ability to look up facts, to interpret them, to connect one with another, and to analyze their importance. Like the old adage “Give someone a fish, he eats for a day; teach him how to fish, he eats for a lifetime,” it is the capacity to acquire and use information that lasts longer and matters more than the information itself.

You Loved a Woman Once" She told you of childhood summers, mayflies trembling beside the bridge of her nose, hunting frogs. Skinning them on a brick, the house smelling like their small, fried legs. All she wanted was for you to carry her home in a canoe with paddles, life vests, a flare. You promised to teach her how to swim when she was in your arms. Your own body, broken into so many times, became a clear lake for her to bathe in. Remember pulling the one tiny, suckering leech from below her neck, the pale collarbone Braille it left. You said the boat was her shoulder in your mouth, even when you couldn’t bear her epaulets of freckles, even when nothing but a body would do and there was no body but her own. Below her—lily pads, dragonflies, the worms dug up last summer and thrown from the dock to see fish rise in a boil—now all snapped raw in the frozen pond. And speaker, coded “you”—what about the light straining through her dampened hair, will you catch it in your jaws? There’s the smell of paper on her skin and you pressing her body like a flower in a book.

This puts the choice in the hands of the poor,” says Michael Faye, founder of GiveDirectly, the organization behind Bernard’s windfall. “And the truth is, I don’t think I have a very good sense of what the poor need.”7 Faye doesn’t give people fish, or even teach them to fish. He gives them cash, in the conviction that the real experts on what poor people need are the poor people themselves. When I asked him why there are so few peppy videos or pictures on GiveDirectly’s website, Faye explained that he doesn’t want to play on emotions too much. “Our data are hard enough.” He’s right: According to a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, GiveDirectly’s cash grants spur a lasting rise in incomes (up 38% from before the infusion) and also boost homeownership and possession of livestock (up 58%), while reducing the number of days that children go hungry by 42%. Furthermore,

I rang out a couple more customers as I thought about it, and...he slowly walked up to the counter and set down two spools of line. I should really figure out what the point of one being thicker than the other was. “Hi, Mr. Rhodes,” I greeted him with a smile. He’d taken his sunglasses off and slid them through one of the gaps between the buttons of his work shirt. His gray eyes were steady on me as he said in that same uninterested, stern tone from before, “Hi.” I took the first package of fishing line and scanned it. “How is your day going?” “Fine.” I scanned the next package and figured I might as well go in for the kill since no one was around. “You remember that time you said you owed me?” A day ago. He didn’t say anything, and I peeked up at him. Since his eyebrows couldn’t talk, they formed a shape that told me exactly how distrustful he was feeling right then. “You do, okay. Well,” and I lowered my voice, “I was going to ask if I could redeem that favor.” Those gray eyes stayed narrowed. This was going well. I glanced around to make sure no one was listening and quickly said, “When you aren’t busy… could you teach me about all this stuff? Even if it’s just a little bit?” That got him to blink in what I was pretty sure was surprise. And to give him credit, he too lowered his voice as he asked slowly and possibly in confusion, “What stuff?” I tipped my head to the side. “All this stuff in here. Fishing, camping, you know, general knowledge I might need to work here so I have an idea of what I’m doing.” There was another blink. I might as well go for it. “Only when you aren’t super busy. Please. If you can, but if you can’t, that’s okay.” I’d just cry myself to sleep at night. No biggie. Worst case, I could hit up the library on my days off. Hang out in the grocery store parking lot and google information. I could make it work. I would, regardless. Dark, thick, black eyelashes dipped over his nice eyes, and his voice came out low and even. “You’re serious?” He thought I was shitting him. “Dead.” His head turned to the side, giving me a good view of his short but really pretty eyelashes. “You want me to teach you to fish?” he asked like he couldn’t believe it, like I’d asked him to… I don’t know, show me his wiener. “You don’t have to teach me to fish, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I haven’t been in forever. But more about everything else. Like, what is the point of these two different kinds of line? What are all the lures good for? Or are they called flies? Do you really need those gadgets to start a fire?” I knew I was whispering as I said, “I have so many random questions, and not having internet makes it hard to look things up. Your total is $40.69, by the way.” My landlord blinked for about the hundredth time at that point, and I was pretty sure he was either confused or stunned as he pulled his wallet out and slipped his card through the reader, his gaze staying on me for the majority of the time in that long, watchful way that was completely different from the way the older men had been eyeballing me earlier. Not sexually or with interest, but more like I was a raccoon and he wasn’t sure if I had rabies or not. In a weird way, I preferred it by a lot. I smiled. “It’s okay if not,” I told him, handing over a small paper bag with his purchases inside. The tall man took it from me and let his eyes wander to a spot to my left. His Adam’s apple bobbed; then he took a step back and sighed. “Fine. Tonight, 7:30. I’ve got thirty minutes and not one longer.” What! “You’re my hero,” I whispered. He looked at me, then blinked. “I’ll be there, thank you,” I told him. He grunted, and before I could thank him again, he was out of there so fast I had no chance to check out his butt in those work pants of his.

Jeremy George Lake Charles Personal Rewards Of Fishing Most of the catch premiums go to the top 20% of anglers. These are the fishermen who find patterns, find fish and present baits that have the best chance of attracting the fish. Jeremy George Lake Charles As you probably know, fishing is a hobby, a way to relax without putting food on the table. A common reason people like to fish is that it is fun, whether you like to look for strippers or outwit a tired brown trout with a hand tied fly that imitates an insect about the size of a pinhead. Fishing health benefits are so great and varied for your physical well-being or mental state that it can be difficult to appreciate them. To prove that we don't just tell fishing stories, we looked at the science behind fishing and its effects on body and mind. Read on to learn about the 10 best health benefits of fishing and why it's a great way to improve mental and physical well-being. Jeremy George Lake Charles Fishing gives you the opportunity to improve your self-esteem, respect the environment, learn new outdoor skills and achieve personal goals, such as catching more and bigger different fish species. Spending time with the family promotes a sense of security and well-being, which makes fishing a rewarding activity. Fishing is a skill that has been passed down through generations, from the grandfather who takes young children to a familiar pond and teaches them how to hook a worm.

So, you stand in the river, facing upstream with the water rushing down upon you as if it could somehow fill the hollow emptiness—and somehow, it always does. So it was one morning. I stood there, without even casting and with no trout rising, and as the water rushed past me, I knew it was washing my burdens behind me, swirling them downstream like the autumn leaves. There is a great deal about living that trout can teach us. They teach us how to keep swimming even in a steady current. Trout know that if they stop swimming, they cease to be trout and begin to become debris, floating without purpose wherever the current may take them. Trout know that if they keep swimming, facing into the current, perhaps in the eddy of a rock, all that they need to truly live will eventually come to them. I learn a great deal from trout.

There are many different ways of teaching languages. The Ottomans rounded up youngsters in conquered lands and brought them back as slaves to be trained as dil oglan, or “language boys,” in Istanbul. Modern direct methods are gentler but rely on the same understanding of how languages are best learned—through total immersion in a bain linguistique, a kind of baptism of the brain.

Perhaps you’ve heard the proverb, “Give people a fish and they eat for a day, but teach them to fish and they eat for a lifetime.” Well, it is also true that “you can lead people to water, but you can’t make them fish.

To the rich, the really poor don't know that the level of comfort you experience exist at all, so you see, they don't need your sympathy, and you should not feel guilty, just teach them how to fish.

Mistakes to Avoid This is not a story about sharing (i.e., the boy who shared his lunch). The boy is mentioned only in John, and even there his willingness is not mentioned. The boy may have been willing, but that should no more be the focus than should sitting in groups of a particular size or helping to clean up after the meal. These are trivial issues. The reference in all four Gospels to the five loaves and two fish emphasizes how little there was to begin with. Other details not to emphasize include the disciples’ incredulity at the number fed; or God taking little things and turning them into something great; or Jesus praying before the meal was eaten, or the disciples gathering up the leftover food, which is included to indicate the magnitude of the multiplication, not that they let nothing go to waste. In teaching younger ages, the emphasis should be simply that Jesus is God and that he cares about the people and is taking care of them. Older groups may be able to understand more about the messianic banquet and the connections to Moses, Elijah, and Elisha.

Question: But I have heard people say that Buddhists worship idols. Answer: Such statements only reflect the misunderstanding of the persons who make them. The dictionary defines an idol as ‘an image or statue worshiped as a god.’ As we have seen, Buddhists do not believe that the Buddha was a god, so how could they possibly believe that a piece of wood or metal is a god? All religions use symbols to represent their various beliefs. In Taoism, the ying-yang diagram is used to sym-bolize the harmony between opposites. In Sikhism, the sword is used to symbolize spiritual struggle. In Christianity, the fish is used to symbolize Christ’s presence and a cross to represent his sacrifice. In Buddhism, the statue of the Buddha reminds us of the human dimension in Buddhist teaching, the fact that Buddhism is human-centered rather than god-centered, that we must look within, not without to find perfection and understanding.

do?” Matt suddenly sounded defensive. Luther looked at Matt. “I’ll tell you, Matthew and then you tell me. My joy in life is my kids and my grandkids. I take a lot of pride in teaching them how to fish and hunt. I enjoy teaching them how to shoot a bow straight or how to carve a piece of wood into something wonderful. It’ll be my legacy when I’m dead and gone that they teach their children the things I taught them. It’s the same things your grandfather taught your mother and me. The same things we taught you when you were little. Those are the things I enjoy.

Sumerian myths and legends of the antediluvian world do much more than speak of the five cities. They also tell an extraordinary story of how their ancestors, who lived in the 'most ancient times', were visited by a brotherhood of semi-divine beings described as half men, half fish, who had been 'sent [by the gods] to teach the arts of civilization to mankind before the Flood' and who had themselves 'emerged from the sea'. The collective name by which these creatures were known was the 'Seven Sages' and the name of their leader was Oannes. Each of them was paired as a 'counsellor' to an antediluvian king and they were renowned for their wisdom in affairs of state and for their skills as architects, builders and engineers.

Coaches are teachers. Some coaches—lesser coaches—try telling you things. Good coaches, however, teach you how to think and arm you with the fundamental tools necessary to execute properly. Simply put, good coaches make sure you know how to use both hands, how to make proper reads, how to understand the game. Good coaches tell you where the fish are, great coaches teach you how to find them. That’s the same at every level.

It’s quiet again. Across the lake, there’s a man with two little boys. He’s teaching them how to fish. I watch him, wondering if he’s cheating on their mom.

Ah, fishing! That should be a lot simpler than trying to teach them how to domesticate whatever is walking or flying in the deeper tunnels. Thank you,