A Toast: "To Fish and Faith"

Montana stock photo

Today's inspiration came from a movie called "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen." (Click for video trailer). En route home from World Peace and Prayer Day, my family headed through Wyoming and turned west --- on purpose -- to skirt through Yellowstone National Park and to visit the Buffalo Field Campaign.

We enjoyed the occasion to go fishing on the trip in the icy cool Montana rivers.  We didn't come prepared with all the traditional fly fishing gear, but rather waded instead out to a gravel barge.  The water was painful and almost numbing but soon the warm sun greeted our eager skin when we stood on the mini island jetting just above the surface.  I stood in the river with my son, watching the fly fishing masters cast and make their rhythmic motions.  When I close my eyes I can mentally take myself back to the moment, soaking in the sun and the beauty of the area.  Here's a mental snapshot of our trek...  Then this past weekend, we went fishing with Grandpa to his nearby trout lake.  So this movie struck a special cord with this fishing family.

The movie storyline goes something like this:  Big vision.  Optimism.  Casting the vision.  Recruiting helpers to bring vision to fruition.  Twists and turns.  Challenges.  Movie watchers leave theatre believing that they too can change the world.

The formal synopsis:  "A visionary sheik believes his passion for the peacetime pastime of salmon fishing can enrich the lives of his people and he dreams of bringing the sport to the not so fish-friendly desert.  Willing to spare no expense, he instructs his representative to turn the dream to reality, an extraordinary feat that will require the involvement of Britain's leading fisheries expert who happens to think that the the project both absurd and unachievable...Now this unlikely team will put it all on the line and embark on an upstream journey of faith to fish and prove the impossible, possible."

So I thought I'd share what inspired me to go invest my day pursuing some of my "absurd and unachievable" ideas... Enough writing for today and off to change the world!   Cheers!