Most weekday mornings after we drop the boys off at school, my daughter and I go to a nearby park. She typically rides in the stroller while I walk for about two miles. But at the end of our two miles, we must “go see the fishies.”

There is a lovely koi pond at the other end of the park. We end our walk there. My daughter loves to get out of her stroller to peer through the gate at the colorful fish below.

Our walk typically ends about the same time that the “fishies” are fed. This means that the fish get so excited when they see us coming that they rush to the surface and begin gulping air at the surface. They’re expecting food pellets to be floating there. They sometimes get into quite a frenzy, thinking any minute we will toss their food over the top of the iron gate that lines their pond.

The thing is, we have never fed them. We never even act like we are feeding them. We know that when the actual park employee comes to feed them, he will clang the deadbolt lock against the iron gate several times. So we don’t do that. But the fish don’t care. They just know it is about the same time and we appear in the same general area as the man who feeds them. The man who feeds them never brings a small child or a stroller, but that doesn’t seem to matter either.

These poor “fishies” waste their time, energy, and enthusiasm on us: spectators who have always honored the “DO NOT FEED FISH” sign mounted on the edge of the pond. We never provide the nourishment they are seeking. We never intend to. And yet, the “fishies” continue–day after day, week after week, and month after month–to scramble to the surface, hoping to be one of the first to retrieve food pellets from the surface of the water. They rush to the surface, gulping and splashing, only to be disappointed and unfulfilled.

For months now we have watched these beautiful fish. Often, I have the same thoughts: How often are we just like these fish? We live in a glorious time. Information is readily available to us in the palms of our hands, at the touch of a screen, or the sound of a voice. Yet we rarely pay attention to the source of our information. We scramble to read a colorful meme or a shocking headline, only to come away unfulfilled and empty. Maybe even worse off if we, like the fish, have swallowed too much bad air in the process.

I think nourishment will look different to each of us because our souls are all inherently–and fantastically–different. But I think we must consider what it looks like to be intentionally seeking a True Source. If you are religious, this could translate to reading some nourishing scripture. I understand that religion takes many forms. I claim the privilege of worshipping according to the dictates of my conscience and respectfully invite you to worship how, where, or what you may.

My thoughts are simple: let’s seek nourishment in the information we choose to invite into our hearts and minds instead of the empty, sometimes false, unfulfilling information that is so prevalent. I know that this simple shift in our information consumption will bring us profound joy.

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