One person looking in the water commented to her husband, "Why are there so many? And they're so plump!"
I wanted to reply: "the rain. The rain brings them. The water level gets higher; the current gets stronger; and they come to play."
pic: carp in the gulley. There are about 20 there! (click on the photo for a better look.)
This morning's Streams in the Desert reading had to do with rainclouds, how they announce the coming of earth-quenching rain; how it shows us dark trials also announce the coming of heart-quenching blessing. We need not fear them but anticipate the gifts they bring.
- Sometimes, I saw them slapping their bodies against the gulley wall (near the Kuwano Hospital). Maybe they were doing it for pure sport, for fun. But I do know they could scrub off any irritations this way! I wonder, doesn't adversity often have a funny way of doing away with miserable, doggedly-clinging discomforts?
- This morning, I saw a few more of them dashing toward the shallower waters--sometimes a smooth incline set with an underwater branch or undergrowth--forcing their bodies to flip sideways as they leaped out of the water. Yes, carp have a natural instinct to jump. But I couldn't help but notice that that's when the glistening bodies of the fish flashed beautifully. I so wanted to get a picture of it, but the leap-flip was so fast, I could only hope to get it by accident if at all. Doesn't trial often "bring out the shine" for those of us "exercised thereby"? Oh God, teach us to love the rain, not for the droplets themselves perhaps, but for the "jumping" joy they afford, the grace they work in us.
pic: I happened to be clicking the shutter when a fish nearby jumped out of the water! - There was one carp I couldn't help looking at. Not a white-with-red-splotch one or a whole-body-orange one or an unusually big one. It was plain, gray, medium-sized, nothing exceptional about it...except for one thing. It had a white patch on its body the very pronounced shape of a heart. Could it have been caught, the heart-mark painted on it, then released into the water once more? I suppose sometimes it takes a terrifying experience before we bear a special mark enabling us to act with grace regardless of the circumstance.
pic: It looks like a heart to me! - This one just came to me: When I mentioned the white carp and the orange one, somebody passing by said something very sad. The brightly-colored ones, human beings come by and fish them, take them home, so that the ones left are the plain ones. Isn't it the ones beautiful in God's eyes, those that pray "whatever-it-takes-God-do-it" that He chooses to extract and expose to trial, not because He no longer loves them, but because they are special to Him?
- pic: Black, Orange, and White Carp
"Christ's unworthy shimobe (Japanese for "servant")", a missionary often signs when referring to himself. Unworthy! I suppose he proclaims with joy what all of us should realize.
