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20 Comments

Sue from Buffalo
September 18th, 2009 | 7:13 pm | #1

It took my breath away.

Elektra
September 18th, 2009 | 7:28 pm | #2

He ALWAYS gives us the Best.

kelleybee
September 18th, 2009 | 7:51 pm | #3

Thank you. I needed fish today. FISH, thank you Lord.

A, I thought I was the queen of procrastination…whooeee…I am not alone. I will pray for you…right now.

bensmom
September 18th, 2009 | 8:00 pm | #4

Bless you, dear Anchoress. It’s been a tough week out here in east Texas… that is, until I read your column. My problems and pain are diminished. My students say, “God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good!” And so I stagger on, rejoicing in His presence. I pray His presence is very real and comforting and strengthening to you this very moment.

SjB
September 18th, 2009 | 8:57 pm | #5

Prayers ascending.
Fish descending.

erica
September 18th, 2009 | 10:56 pm | #6

Oh, how I needed to read this today…My oldest son is fighting drug addiction, and I am fighting disappointment that his life has taken such a bad turn…but reading this reminded me that a month ago I was calling police stations searching for him, and mentally preparing to plan his funeral. But, by the grace of God, he was instead arrested and is now in treatment and has opened up to us about his problems. (The policeman on the phone must have thought I was a little nuts when he said my son had been arrested and I said “thank God.” )
The last few days, though, I have found myself daydreaming that my son was in a different place. Having someone you love in a major depression is exhausting. I was forgetting to be thankful that he is still alive. Just two days ago a friend of mine lost her son to an overdose. I wilL try to remember it is always a fish…

Sally Thomas
September 18th, 2009 | 11:18 pm | #7

Sending up a prayer for you, too. I hate, hate, hate that feeling of time blowing past me while nothing gets done. (on the other hand, my closets are really, really, really clean this week . . . )

What a devastating, beautiful story. Fish, indeed.

Noah D
September 19th, 2009 | 12:37 am | #8

“(The policeman on the phone must have thought I was a little nuts when he said my son had been arrested and I said “thank God.” )”

Erica, allow me to relate a story from my life.

There was a boy in Tennessee who fell into a bad crowd, one way or another. Alcoholic before he was 16, in and out of school, using pot and acid, and eventually dealing acid.

When the police finally caught up with him, when he was sitting in a car about to do another acid deal, when the lights and sirens came on and he was surrounded by officers, his drugs and paraphernalia all over the place, his clear and unbidden thought was, “Oh, thank God.”

He cleaned himself up – slowly, with effort, attending AA and NA every week. He dedicated himself to attending church. He kicked the drug habits. He got into college – Earlham College, in Indiana, where he was an exceptional philosophy student, and my room-mate for almost a year.

He graduated, married his girlfriend (one of my RAs), joined the Marines, served 2 deployments in Iraq, and is now home and expecting children (if they’re not here already!)

Thank God, indeed!

In other words, they might not think you’re nuts. I hope this helps!

MJ
September 19th, 2009 | 8:44 am | #9

Wow! Thank you for that beautiful story. I, as others, needed to read this today. Prayers for all.

Gail F
September 19th, 2009 | 9:23 am | #10

That is such a powerful essay. I wrote to the author to thank her.

Erica: I doubt the police thought you were crazy. I belong to a civic group that works closely with the police (our very large, diverse urban neighborhood has a seemingly intractable population of poor, criminal folks — most of them doing drugs) and they all view getting arrested for the first as a real opportunity for turning one’s life around. Unfortunately, many people don’t. But there is a big enough percentage who do that many, many people try to be there to offer help at just that time. I pray that your son will be one.

Kathleen
September 19th, 2009 | 9:25 am | #11

Your post prompts a fine memory for me of a Peanuts-theme greeting card.

The image is of Snoopy, looking exasperatedly at Woodstock, nesting on the dog-house roof or perhaps splashing in Snoopy`s water dish. My memory is not perfect. Snoops says, “You are not what I prayed for exactly, but apparently you are the answer.”

(I bought all the copies of the card that the store had and they have long since been sent on to friends and family with a full-body chuckle every time!).

Thank you, Anchoress, for the prompt.

CV
September 19th, 2009 | 9:54 am | #12

I’m a very small fish in the big writing pond, and for the past several weeks I have felt utterly overwhelmed and paralyzed by: the amount of work I have taken on, competing deadlines, family obligations, and acute awareness of the role my own shortcomings have contributed to my current situation.I just wanted to share a little intercessory prayer that I have been relying on a lot lately.

St. Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei (which means Work of God), said that “your daily encounter with Christ takes place right where you work, where your aspirations and your affections are.”

Here’s the prayer:”

O God, through the mediation of Mary our Mother, you granted your priest St. Josemaria Escriva countless graces, choosing him as a most faithful instrument to found Opus Dei, a way of sanctification in daily work and the fulfillment of the Christian’s ordinary duties.Grant that I too may learn to turn all the circumstances and events of my life into occasions of loving you and serving the church, the Pope and all souls with joy and simplicity, lighting up the pathways of this earth with faith and love…”

The story at the link you shared, and Erica’s story, have given me some sorely needed perspective. Prayers all around!

(Erica, for what it’s worth, someone close to me faced a similar situation with addiction and was able to turn his life around dramatically after a breaking point that forced him into treatment. I will pray for you and your son.)

luzminda penaranda
September 19th, 2009 | 10:35 am | #13

A very wonderful story of men’s life and the true lesson is that our pains brings us more closer to God. We are able to talk to Him in Spirit, asking Him question..why things are happening… and in a little while you will find out that God has a reason for everything. It is always according to His plan …and you began to surrender and lift everything to His Will. Then you will learn that God loves you and He has plans for you just abide in His Will like Jesus, the only Son of God who showed us the way… because He is the truth and the Life. God Bless brothers and sisters in Christ.

Sherry
September 19th, 2009 | 10:18 pm | #14

Beautiful piece, best understanding of the meaning of suffering I’ve seen in a long time. Blessed to have this fish.

Mimsy
September 20th, 2009 | 12:27 am | #15

If you don’t call this ”getting your work done,” then what kind of work do you do?
Blessings!

GM Roper
September 20th, 2009 | 8:52 am | #16

What a marvelous treat on today, my 63rd birthday and beginning my 4th cancer free year. Anchoress, you are always a blessing.

Mutnodjmet
September 20th, 2009 | 1:13 pm | #17

Praying for you to get “in the zone” and blast out the work you need to do.

Hugs and thoughts of support, as well as thanks for the “Fish” essay you linked to.

MissJean
September 20th, 2009 | 2:53 pm | #18

Thanks for this! I passed it on to someone with whom I’d just had a similar discussion.

J’s Cafe Nette » Tuesday Tid-Bits
September 22nd, 2009 | 9:05 am | #19

[...] you missed this post by The Anchoress, the story attached to the link she provides is one which drives home what is really important in [...]

labwriter
September 22nd, 2009 | 9:58 pm | #20

Your posts are a blessing to me. I too have issues with “not getting it done,” although as one commenter said, sometimes maybe we just don’t realize what “it” is, at the time. I’m a writer working on a long, long project. Some days, it seems like nothing works, like it’s all just sort of hopeless.

When I get down about my work, I think about Edna Ferber, or “Ferb” as her family called her. “Wot a girl!” This is something her niece wrote about her:

On the tenth floor of the Hotel Majestic [in Manhattan] she sat hunched over the Underwood all day. She was in the habit of working in her bathrobe, stockings rolled at the knees, hair drooping, fingernails chipped as a charwoman’s. No telephone calls. No cigarettes either. No food except water and chewing gum. Sometimes her mind wandered downtown, to Aleck Woollcott and the rest of them around the big lunch table at the Algonquin. Edna, who never bothered with lunch, found it a bit ridiculous that the Round Table would continue to hum well into mid-afternoon. When did those people work? … She waited until afternoon to read her morning mail and warned people never to telephone “unless someone in the family is murdered.”

I love that. When work isn’t going well for me, I think of Ferber, hunched in her bathrobe, turning her back on those people at the Algonquin Round Table, typing away at her Underwood. And I smile, and usually I can usually go back to my own work with increased focus.

God Bless,
Becky in St. Louis

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