FLY-FISHING AND PASTORAL MINISTRY are like a Woody Allen movie: both are about sex and death, sex and death, sex and death.

Trout rise to eat the insects that ride the stream, suspended on the surface tension of the water. The insects are on their way to mating, fertilization, and then death. The fly-fisher floats a fur-and-feather imitation of the insects on the surface of the water, hoping to trick the trout into a strike. The trout must eat the bug to live. The bug must reproduce to prolong the existence of the species. The fisher interrupts the fish's feeding cycle by catching it. The fateful meeting of the fisher and the trout are keyed to the reproduction-and-death cycle of the insect.

Pastoral ministry is, likewise, to a large degree keyed to the reproduction and the death cycles of humans. This is the natural relation of the cycle of eros and thanatos, the Greek words for sexual love and death. We conduct ceremonies for the purpose of solemnizing and blessing the birth of humans, ...