​ Just Shut Up and Fish

I know it’s not politically correct to say this, but I was a weird kid. I mean all the way down to the core, strange. For instance, I have liked documentaries for as long as I can remember. Since knowledge started to fill the little creases and crevices of my brain, I have always preferred the documentary. Go figure.
 
When I was a young boy and I was given a choice between Bugs Bunny and Jacques Cousteau, I would take a documentary on the humpback whale every time. Now I’d think twice if the Roadrunner was on. I loved seeing old Wily Coyote smacked, but as a rule, old Jacques came out on top.
​
Now perhaps the documentary was more of a rarity back in the mid-60s and early-70s. I mean today we have so many channels that there are documentaries on just about every subject you can think of, just to fill the space. I actually saw a documentary advertised the other day on the “Life and Times of The African Dung Beetle.” I resisted that one. I just don’t want to know. Back in the old three channel days, if there was a documentary on, it was well done, well thought out, and on a subject that most people would find interesting.
 
Now as a caveat to all of this; if Jeannie, or Elly May, or Mary Ann, or any of the “Petticoat Junction” girls were on, the documentaries could take a powder. Priorities, you know.
 
Another thing that my oddball brain enjoyed doing was reading odd books; odd books for a kid at least. Things like The Origin of Species by Darwin, The Book of Mormon, East of Eden by Steinbeck, Absalom, Absalom by Faulkner, and other weird stuff like that. I wasn’t a brainiac by any means, trust me. I was just strange.
 
By now some of you are thinking, “Yea, I always thought a couple of his wheels had a spoke or two missing.”
 
Well, while on the subject of odd books, I was down in Panama City one summer when I was maybe twelve or thirteen at the most, and I found myself in the book section of Grants Department Store. While rummaging around in the place, I came across a book entitled “The Art of Bass Fishing” by none other than Jerry McKinnis.
 
As weird as I was, I was still a Southern boy at heart, and bass fishing in the deep South was and is about as close to a sacrament as you can get without going to church, so I bought the book.
 
Since everybody in Panama City and the surrounding area bass fished and was good at it, nobody wanted the book. So for a meager $0.25 I purchased a nice hard backed copy of “The Art of Bass Fishing” by none other than Jerry Mckinnis.
 
Summer was just about over, and I was heading back home pretty soon. So I found this treasure a little too late for the season; but I took it home and studied, and read and studied some more until when the next summer came around, I was loaded for bear when it came to catching bass.
 
Well, to shorten the story a bit, the next summer grandpa and I were sitting in an old rented Jon boat sculling our way up the Brother's River near my favorite haunt, Whiskey Slough, doing a little bass fishing.
 
The weather was perfect for the panhandle of Florida. It was scalding, but we had hats, and we had bass on our mind so the weather wasn’t a problem. The problem was, I was a teenager, and as is true of all teenagers worldwide, I knew everything; and on account of that, I was telling my grandpa how to fish because let’s face it a fourteen-year-old boy from out of town knows much more than a 60-year-old native born man when it comes to the art of bass fishing on the panhandle of Florida. After all, I read a book by none other than Jerry Mckinnis on the subject, and I was up on all the modern techniques and products.
 
Being properly full of myself, I was telling my grandpa what color rubber worm he needed, and when and where to cast it, and just how to jig that worm so it looked like a critter a bass would eat.
 
Well, while I was pontificating my grandpa was fishing; and as he put his third largemouth in the cooler, he started to chuckle to himself ever so gently. After a time he looked up and over at me and said with a knowing grin, “Why don’t you just shut up and fish.”
 
When I went to bed last night, I was struggling to come up with the subject for this month’s newsletter. This happens from time to time, so I prayed a little prayer to the Lord and said, “Lord if you’ve got something for me, please let me have it by tomorrow morning. Time is tight.”
 
Well, when I woke up this morning, this old story was on my mind. That happens once in a while; sometimes just because I ate something spicy for dinner, and sometimes because the Lord’s got something for me. I’ll let y’all decide.
 
I’ve been thinking about this mess in the Church as of late. I know that Beulah has voted to break away from the United Methodist Church simply because integrity demands it. While I truly believe that Beulah has made a Godly decision, the reason behind Beulah having to make that decision breaks my heart.
 
Some within the Church have been acting like a bunch of know it all teenagers as of late; thinking that they have all the right answers and all the right ideas. Forgetting that the One who wrote the book on fishing for men indeed has all the answers and those answers, are all eternally correct. Like teenagers worldwide though, puffed up and proud, they thought they needed to correct the only adult in the room. They were mistaken.
 
As we here at Beulah start down a new path, let us take note.  Let us remember that while we have the Greatest Book ever written at our disposal, we do not have editing privileges. The Word of God stands on its own, and it needs no help from us.
 
I can almost hear the Lord’s gentle laughter, as He looks down upon His Church and with a knowing and sympathetic grin says: “Why don’t y’all just shut up and fish.”
 
Love,
Pastor Tony

Henry Clayton Tharpe - Grandpa