The water is cold and, in the coolness, my hands grow numb…..fingers splayed and grasping, reaching for something that I think I see beyond the glare of the hot sun on the surface of this river.

I am desperately optimistic.

Or, maybe I should say that I’m desperate to be optimistic?

I think that there must be a difference.

Sometimes it feels like trying to be optimistic is like fishing by hand.

I can’t see a reason sometimes to see any potential for optimism beyond the glare of the pessimism I bring to this stream.

Most of the time,though, I know that the “fish” are down there….and sometimes, when I look at the water just right, I can see them flashing by, beautiful and attainable, ready to be brought up if I reach out with positive expectations.

Beyond the glare, I see what I know is there.

Every once in while, it’s only glare that I see on the surface of the water, though.

It’s only the surface that keeps me from seeing, anyway.

“Surface” is all any of us have.

We’re not patient enough to see beyond it.

Anyway…maybe optimism isn’t about being able to see the fish all the time?

Maybe it’s about knowing that they’re down below the surface…because I’ve seen them there before?

Maybe optimism is the same thing as faith?

I am desperate to be optimistic.

What do they say about teaching a man to fish?

How do you build the skill of always having the faith to reach out for something that is hard to see?

How do you learn to charge towards optimism?

I would stand with frozen hands, waiting and hoping….always fishing…. before I’d give up on something good happening in our lives.

I will go down fishing.

Here’s a Kenny Rankin song that’s on my mind this morning.

I don’t think that he mentions “fishing” in the song….so it doesn’t really have anything to do with this post.

Kenny Rankin “Killed a Cat”