January 5th, 2004
Gifts
A Trout Angler’s Prayer At Christmas*
By Reverend Daniel P. Adams, Jackson, Wyoming
**> O Lord, who did include so many fishermen within your
select circle of followers, we thank you that in your
wondrous design of creation you included the gift of trout…trout great and small
trout East and west.
We thank you for the gift of places these trout take us.
To hear the laughter of foothill brooks giggling through
a hardwood forest.To feel the soft flow of meadow spring pressing gently
at our wader.To taste the pine-spiced, lung-cleansing air at a
high country lake.To smell the edge of salt breeze following steelhead
up a brawling coastal river.We thank you for the gift of insects both aquatic and
terrestrial and for tiny fishes - these creatures we study to intently
and so awkardly represent in our offerings to the trout.We thank you for the gift of friends bound by a common
interest and concern and for the camaraderie by which
our lives are enriched.And Lord, though you might secretly smile at how we take
our angling pastime so deadly serious at times, we pray
that would would help us not to become so constantly
solemn that we forget the gifts of simple pleasure and
joy by which our bodies, minds and spirits are recreated.We accept these gifts with gratitude and with the commitment
whenever possible, to right the wrongs we have done to this
good earth, and to preserve and maintain the unspoiled
places.We pray that you would help us to remember that trout and
their waters are limited.And we pray that you would grant us the wisdom and resolve
to be faithful caretakers of these treasures.Amen. Reverend Daniel P. Abrams, Jackson, Wyoming
* This prayer is from the Winter 1983 issue of Trout
magazine, of Trout Unlimited.**
Originally published January 5th, 2004 on Fly Anglers Online by Reverend Daniel P. Adams.