Blue Fish
To be a good Catholic means you have to be a “blue fish.” When it seems all of society is swimming in one direction, you will be swimming in the opposite direction. The next step after the minimum required by the Precepts of the Church, would be to become a “blue fish.” And when you do, don’t expect it to be easy.
Picture by F. Frankhttp://www.newfishart.com/fishfile2/2007/blue-orange-fish-art.html
It’s not easy being a good Catholic. In order to be a good Catholic, it is necessary to become counter-cultural. In most cases you are going to be diametrically opposed to what society claims is the “ok” thing to do.
During one of my classes on the reasons for the Catholic Church’s stance on birth control, I closed with the images of a school of little fish on the whiteboard. In the middle was one fish going the other direction. When I first drew this little vignette, my choice of marker pen colors was pretty limited. I had black and blue, so the single fish became blue. From that day the blue fish became my metaphor for “doing the right or Catholic thing.”
When we are baptized into the family of God, we accepted the dual responsibilities of learning the teachings of the Church and living by them. Nobody suggested that if we didn’t like the teachings, or if they weren’t convenient at that time in our life, we were free to change them. Not one person ever said it would be easy. The fact is, they aren’t always easy but they are always doable.
During one of my classes on the reasons for the Catholic Church’s stance on birth control, I closed with the images of a school of little fish on the whiteboard. In the middle was one fish going the other direction. When I first drew this little vignette, my choice of marker pen colors was pretty limited. I had black and blue, so the single fish became blue. From that day the blue fish became my metaphor for “doing the right or Catholic thing.”
When we are baptized into the family of God, we accepted the dual responsibilities of learning the teachings of the Church and living by them. Nobody suggested that if we didn’t like the teachings, or if they weren’t convenient at that time in our life, we were free to change them. Not one person ever said it would be easy. The fact is, they aren’t always easy but they are always doable.
To be a good Catholic means you have to be a “blue fish.” When it seems all of society is swimming in one direction, you will be swimming in the opposite direction. The next step after the minimum required by the Precepts of the Church, would be to become a “blue fish.” And when you do, don’t expect it to be easy.
Picture by F. Frankhttp://www.newfishart.com/fishfile2/2007/blue-orange-fish-art.html
7 comments:
Nice post!
Karen
[I like blue, anyway. :-D ]
Obviously I am a blue fish...and I've got the chilen to prove it. By the way, we need homework help over here. Please come by and answer the question!
Adrienne, cutting and pasting this post to Nikki....
Hi Adrienne,
Thanks for your help - I wouldn't dare ask Him that, just in case the answer was 'this afternoon'! (I am SO not ready!)
I would love to know more about your comment on my 'Stella' post, but perhaps not publicly. Perhaps you could e-mail me?
The one with the earache has now got the 'Norovirus' which is sweeping Britain. It's not as bad as it sounds, just a two day thing, but it is currently at 4 million people! With those odds, we were bound to get one here!
Thanks for asking. You are very kind.
Great post! I wish more people had the courage to say that truth is unchanging and not decided by popularity.
Adrienne, what you say is so true. I would like to add that when we do the right thing, i.e. when are blue fish (1) we get punished, sometimes brutally, by the other fish who don't like people who get out of step with them and (2) the other fish come to see that their 'punishments' (scorn, isolation, exclusion, etc.) are really no big deal. Blue fish get to experience this too, as they live peacefully on, day after day, without the false 'rewards for cooperation' offered by the other fish. All round this has the effect of setting more and more of us free from the tyranny of submission to the mob .. more and more of us become autonomous believers.
I love this metaphor of the blue fish--When we are baptized into the family of God we accepted learning the teachings and living them--convenient or not--I'm a sponser for 2 RCIA students--I think I'll pass this post on to them--very nice!
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