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There is a reunion being held in my backyard this fall. They are expecting hundreds to attend out of the thousands who were invited.

Even though its being held on our property and in our yard, we have not been invited. As a matter of fact, they have been holding these reunions for a very long time without our permission. They have been coming long before we lived here, even longer than the coming of the Europeans to the Americas, or even the indigenous people who once lived here.

I am speaking of the annual return of the salmon to spawn in the creek that runs through our property.

For the past two years they have been gone from this stream. But now they are returning to lay their eggs and finish their life cycle –here — where it began at the bottom of the clear cold stream among the sand and pebbles.

What a marvelous thing it would be if we could sit on a log and ask them where they have been. What incredible tales of adventure would they tell us? How many thousands of miles have they traveled? How many struggles did they have to overcome to reach home? So many rivers, so many streams that all look alike, how did they find their way back?

With so much swimming, through so many strong currents, with so many obstacles, did they ever think about giving up?

I have seen them in strong tides where they were just able to hold their own. I have seen them streak through water at great speed, darting from rock to rock, finding eddies to rest in. Then, a few minutes later, I have seen them go again, then rest again, repeating the process over and over. I have watched them leap through the air, just to get over a single water fall. Some of these extraordinary efforts only gained them a few hundred feet.

In the interior of British Columbia, Canada, a damn was built many years ago. It stood in the path where salmon have passed up stream for hundreds of years. When the salmon came, they tried to get over it, but it was too high. So they hurled themselves at in until their bodies were smashed and broken. The men who built the damn were so impressed at their determination that it was decided to build a concrete water ladder so the fish could circumnavigate the damn in small leaps.

What made the salmon do this? What thought in their tiny heads was so powerful as to compel them to succeed or die in the attempt? 

I suspect, as each left the tiny stream where it was hatched, it had no such compulsion. Rather it was probably filled with a great excitement for adventure, a feeling of freedom, a thirst to swim, to eat, to look, to play, to do anything and everything with reckless abandonment.

What happened and when? How much time went by before there came the feeling deep from within that they must return? Did they ignore it at first, perhaps mistaking it for something they should not have eaten? No doubt they became restless as the feeling became stronger. Is that why they began to gather together in large schools to see if others were feeling the same? Were they looking for someone to tell them what to do? Where to go?

Visualize them then, like ballet dancers, pivoting in unison, first this way and then that. Their movements become faster as others joined in. “ Where are we going?” No one answers as each becomes transfixed in the hypnotic spell. Then, without any visible signal, they all begin to move in a single direction. Somehow, from somewhere a long, long way away, they hear –or rather feel — a calling. “Come home” it beacons. “Come home. It’s time. You must complete the task.” Some respond, yet others stop to ask,” What task? What time?” We are mature now and strong. We are already home. We will continue doing as we have always done.” They break off and swim away.

Those who begin the trip start with enthusiasm, but gradually some slowly drift away because the journey seems so long and the reason so unimportant. 

Others moving on ahead hear and feel the call again. ”Come, hurry, there is not much time left!” Swimming through and across large nets, they struggle against fast moving tides, Over and up water falls, past enticing lures and strange looking, brightly colored minnows they move onward, always onward.

Still, it is too far and too much to expect from some. They pause, and rest, and play with the exciting trinkets that dangle from long, shiny spider webs.

Now the few remaining are traveling further and longer each day. Many have scars and bruises, while still others limp and work with all their strength just to keep up. “ Move on, Move on, Don’t delay, there is only so much time left!. You must finish, You MUST finish.”

When they finally arrive, there are not many left. They look nothing like they did when they left. Their backs are humped, and their snouts turned up. Their skin is a strange, bright red color. But they have arrived and their joy is high. They have come home. They will lay the eggs that will ensure the continuation of their species. Once the eggs are fertilized,  the males make great sweeps to cover them with fine sand so they may lay protected among the pebbles on the bottom of our clear water stream.

It will be a few months before the cycle is repeated. Then these new hatchlings will too go out to sea, as countless millions of others have done before.

As it is with fish, so it is with man.

We have left the place where we were spiritually raised. But now, we are all away at sea. From somewhere afar off, we have heard, or rather felt, a stirring which is calling deep down inside of us. “Come home, come home,” it calls. “ You must complete your task. There is not much time left!” There are many who respond. They gather together looking for directions on what to do, where to go. Yet some prefer to cling to old ways. Still others are busy chasing trinkets that move out of their reach on invisible spider webs.

Still, the call has come. Can you remember hearing it? I can. It was when I was a little child. It came as a distant voice on a summer wind. I remember knowing that there is a God and I had something I must do. When the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came and called at our door, I remembered that day in my childhood. The voice sounded as familiar as “a voice on the summer wind”. Come home, come home” it called and I responded.

Later, I read what the Lord said in Matthew 4: 19: “…Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” 

We are not home yet and there are many challenges and obstacles to overcome before we get there. The early Christians used the sign of the fish to identify themselves. We might consider how many other things “fish” could teach us.

– Doug Garrett