Fly fishers should understand joy as well as anyone.

Joy is less about outcomes as it is about opportunity. Or, true anglers celebrate fishing with a similar perspective whether they’re catching fish or not. Dedicated fly fishers just want to be out on the water. Weather, insect hatches, and the bite are merely variables that go into an equation that equals joy.

This culture conflates joy with happiness. Here is the problem with that: Happiness depends on you. You establish a list of conditions or adopt a series of expectations from someone else. Anything short of that and happiness dissipates. Happiness is fine and good. But you can’t count it it anymore than you can count on the fish to cooperate.

Joy only has one condition; one expectation. It is enjoying what is true, good, and beautiful. 

The ethos of fly fishing, among many other outdoor pursuits, prioritizes the joy of observing heaven and nature. The fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains where trout may be found inspire wonder. Happiness may elude you but the joy is always there. Even though there are patently clear curses on the ground, the creation echoes an eon-old goodness. More to the point, it cries out for her Creator’s majesty.

And while He is seen through creation, He is known because of Christmas. Joy to the world, indeed.

Merry Christmas from Casting Across

Joy to the world; the Lord is come;
Let Earth receive her King;
Let ev’ry heart prepare him room,
And heav’n and nature sing.

Joy to the Earth, the Savior reigns;
Our mortal songs employ,
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains,
Repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of his righteousness,
And wonders of his love.

Joy to the World | Isaac Watts, 1719