The River Why

Out of curiosity, I looked it up on Wikipedia:

“A coming of age story narrated by Gus Orviston, the oldest son in a fishing mad family. Frustrated with life in Portland, Oregon and the constant bickering of his bait fishing mother (Ma) and tweed-wearing, fly-fishing father (H2O) over the proper way to fish, Gus moves to a small cabin in the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range. Once there he begins to follow an “ideal schedule” that has him doing nothing but eating, sleeping and fishing. In the course of doing nothing but what he loves to do he begins to notice the scars that humanity has inflicted on the river and woods he loves. Gus also goes through the traumatic event that occurs as he is fishing of wrestling with a dead man, and through it is able to realize how wrong his “ideal schedule” really is. As he wrestles with what to do he begins to relate with the people in his neighborhood, and discovers a beautiful fisher woman that helps him discover that there is more to life than just fishing.”

It sounds interesting… and the online index shows that it’s on-shelf at the local Library. Nice.

Hi Amakua… The library nearby is part of a local cluster of libraries… which, in turn, is part of a regional group. If the book isn’t available locally, we can place an inter-library loan request to get the book. It’s a pretty good system. There are a few copies in the local cluster and, fortunately, one is on-shelf.

Most movies, unfortunately, never do justice to the book. In fact, there are some books that I never would have read had I seen the movie first. Sad but true.

Yesterday, I wrote that religious discussions often cause issues around here. Four hours later, we had a religious discussion and issues. For whatever reason, SP doesn’t handle religion (or the lack of it) well.

I think, HealingInHisWings, that there is a certain stigma attached to religious conversations. People often assume that, if you’re speaking about religion(s), that you’re going to start preaching to them and they don’t want to hear it. Walls and barriers go up and the rest is history.

Here on SP, the dynamics are often a little different. People often find this site in a time of crisis (let’s face it, many of us found SP via Google on a day when things weren’t going well) and the last thing they want to hear in their time of devastation and torture is something like “God loves you.” It creates a HUGE disconnect between how they’re feeling and the philosophy of the particular religion being cited. I can respect people’s feelings and I think there is a time and a place for certain subject matters.

I agree with you, Ama… and I definitely don’t mind an energized spiritual discussion. By discussion, I mean an exchange of ideas where one or more of the participants might walk away with a new piece of knowledge or, at a minimum, a respect for the other participants. It’s often difficult to find that type of discussion.

In regard to the preaching vs. speaking the Truth, I understand your point. As a Christian, I want to show people the light and discuss God’s plan. I know enough, however, to know that timing is everything. There might come a point in subsequent conversation where we discuss religion and spiritual philosophy… It just might happen later as opposed to first-thing in the interaction.

HealingInHisWings: I don’t think you need to go to a Christian forum to fit in… and your comments about the physician and one’s comfort zone are right on. While I may be reserved in communicating my Christianity, that does NOT mean that you or anybody else should be that way, too. You make a solid ambassador and I hope you use that ability offline (the “real world”) in addition to online.

There are a lot of people in this world who need help… and we’re thankful in 2014 to have a variety of ways to share information.