Casting Across went the online equivalent of belly up on Sunday morning. I came home from church to a handful of emails alerting me to the fact that my website was on the bank, drying in the sun and gasping. And sitting in front of a keyboard and screen completely detached from any physical switches that could be flipped to fix the problem, I felt powerless. So, pit in my stomach, I began clicking on “how to’s.” Each used more words I had never heard before with greater frequency than the last. I didn’t know so many acronyms for protocols for how the internet works existed.

Apparently, lines of code began writing themselves in what I can only assume was a dry run for some Terminator-style technopocalypse. “Then they came for the fly fishing websites,” one day we’ll say.  Was it a malicious attack? Maybe. Certainly not anything directed at a mid-tier angling platform. There’s no crown jewels hidden in my hosting data. But people and the bots they create do mischief and tomfoolery just for the sake of it. More likely than Skynet or a hacker is the reality that I use a boatload of tools, plugins, and templates to make Casting Across hum along. Over the years, one won’t play nicely with the others and there’s a “file not found” or “critical error” fit.

Nearly ten years of writing, links all over the world wide web, and the gateway to my content  on other platforms were all buried under hyphens, strings of numbers, and whatever the symbols < and > are.

But it had never been so dire. It had never been broken.

This was a legitimate concern. And, if it happens again, it will be a concern in the future. But this last week was a reminder that things like my writing, my material possessions, and even my  lifelong passions all exist far down the priority list. Because this week my fifth son was born.

On one hand I don’t think I need to explain the juxtaposition of the beauty and the brokenness too much. A new life and a precious child are everything compared to the vapid nature of a hobby. But I do want to labor the point. I want to for you, and I want to for me. The stark contrast between the two is magnified because of the timing. However, I should feel the same when I look at any of my other four boys. I should feel the same when I look at my wife. I should feel the same when I see my friends, when I am with my church family, and most profoundly when I am in prayer before our God.

Again, it is a perspective I have to remind myself of on normal days. It is the perspective that makes fly fishing mean something. It is that frame of reference where the excitement of a kid throwing a rock into a plunge pool is better than catching the trout that swims within it. It is looking at that which is real and lasting, that which is an investment, and that which will be – as much as one can anticipate – meaningful in hindsight.

Eventually, a YouTube video made by an incredibly obnoxious-yet-helpful gentleman walked me through seven potential fixes. Number six worked. It is probably the kind of thing that teenagers who understand coding did their second week of class. But for me, it felt like rebuilding an engine after previously only knowing how to do an oil change. Gears started whirring, the lights came on, and after seven hours of downtime Casting Across was back. It was a weight off my shoulders.

But it was only a little, broken weight. The eight pound frame of my son in my arms is heavier, more important, and adorned with beauty.