Pleasure and Pain

Dillard doesn't hide her themes, they are out in the open, easy to find, easy to understand, easy to connect, easy to relate. You can feel her connection to nature through her words and her descriptions; a connection of spirituality and virtue. Many times have I seen the ichthys, Jesus fish, but never before have I realized the connection between the two, "The more I glimpse the fish in Tinker Creek, the more satisfying the coincidence becomes, the richer the symbol, not only for Christ but the spirit as well." It was during this section I was able to relate to Dillard's word and connect them to my own experiences. Dillard talks about how she goes to the creek to stalk muskrats but it the fish she is hoping to appear. I doubt that I ever consciously go looking for spirituality. But religion was a large part of my childhood and the core values I have today. I was raised Mormon and until my late middle school years my family went to church every Sunday. During high school I went and graduated from a bible study class that was not only four years long, but also at six in the morning. It was during these years I learned the most about Christianity, but strangely this was the same time I started questioning everything. Last year, at Kent State, I took a Human Evolution course that was mind opening, intriguing, and convincingly factual. It's hard to tell what is true when everything is based on theory. Spirituality is such a fine strand between pleasure and pain, "More men in all of time have died at fishing then at any other human activity except perhaps the making of war." On one side the "fish are spirit food" and are beautiful but on the other side, death (188). How can you tell what you believe when the same idea has both a positive and negative connotation. Even know I am baffled by my trust in both religion and evolution. Can it be that both are connected in my idea of spirituality? That they are so far apart and yet so similar that you can sway back and forth? Just like the pleasure and pain of fish? Without the creation of the world neither can exist. Without the fish there would be no pleasure from the beauty or the food but there would be no pain from death.