Stepping OUT

This is Sarah. She and her boyfriend Scott recently went to Trapeze School, on Pier 40, in New York City. I asked her to tell the story in church, to help us think about what it is like, to Step OUT into God's unknown. Imagine being strapped into a safety harness, clipped to another safety cord, and sent off to climbup a 25 ft. ladder. Imagine meeting a tiny girl at the top, whose job is to hold your entire body weight, as you lean over the edge of the platform to grab the trapeze bar that seems miles away and way beyond your reach. Is your heart racing yet? Have you begun to question what you are doing way up there, and why you are even considering launching yourself off the platform into the air?! Go ahead and look down. Do you see the instructor who will use his body weight to pull the safety harness, so your face won't smash into the net and then the ground? Are you wondering if it's too late to turn back now?

It’s all a process of timing, weight and motion. The instructor will get the rhythm going 1...2...3... hut!' On 'hut' you are supposed to jump off the platform and swing forward, and backward, while flipping upside down. How many tries do you think it will take to convince your feet to budge and leave the platform? What questions are running through your head now? Do you trust the process? Here's what happened, eventually, for Sarah...

"As I climbed that ladder I took a moment to embrace the experience. I realized that the view was beautiful, the sun was setting as I enjoyed the beauty of the city skyline and now it's time!!! Now I'm ready to step off and take a LEAP OF FAITH! I loved the feeling of swinging in the breeze, hanging upside down by my knees and finally letting go and free falling. What a rush!!

My heart was pounding and the adrenaline was flowing!!!!! Before I knew it, I was lying in the middle of the net, thinking, 'I made it' , 'I survived'!! That day, at Trapeze School, I learned a lot about going beyond my comfort zone, trusting my life to complete strangers and a single cable."

Listening to Sarah's story, I wondered how I embrace both uncertainty and exhilaration, as I step out beyond the familiar territory of known experience. With trust? Yes. Courage? Surely. But also with a beginner's mind. In his book, "a life of being, having, and doing enough," Wayne Muller makes a distinction between the beginner's mind of child-like awe, filled with wonder and curiosity and the expert's mind, which just 'knows' how things ought to be done, how they will work, which way is the right way, and which is clearly wrong.

This distinction may have been at play in a conversation Jesus once had with a so-called expert named Nicodemus. Jesus said, “The wind blows where it will, and we hear the sound of it, but we do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8

"We do not know," Jesus said. With a beginner's mind, frontiers of new experience may become a source of birthing as well as blessing. If I am willing to be surprised, I may learn something new about myself. I may learn something new about God. Stepping OUT beyond the frontier of known experience, I may be born again.

Stepping OUT,

Cheryl

Stepping OFF

This year, I'm beginning Lent by stepping step OFF the treadmill!

The advantage to exercising on a treadmill, of course, is all season, all weather, access. The disadvantage is….the scenery never changes. It’s sheer repetition. Effort that eludes a sense of progress. Movement that gets me nowhere.

Still, many of us run, we walk, we pedal, we jump. We bend, we stretch, we huff and puff, to get our blood circulating to all the vital organs of our bodies...to keep our muscles toned...to build stamina and endurance....for flexibility and balance...to burn off calories….or reduce stress....to discharge anger or boil off frustration….or break a sweat. We work out. Yesss!!!

At the outset of Lent, I'm stepping OFF the treadmill, because, if the scenery never changes and I am moving but getting no where….am I really living? Not that I'm giving up my exercise routine for Lent. I wouldn't dream of abandoning the Jazzercise, yoga, and walking by which I maintain some semblance of physical health. I'm stepping OFF the treadmill, that I may draw upon its benefits to gain access to my inner life...to explore the interior landscape of my soul.

In nature, layers come from the passage of time and the interaction of various elements. Wind, sun, soil, rock, freezing, thawing, flooding, the erupting of a volcano, the shifting of tectonic plates, the movement of a glacier creates layer upon layer, a natural process, a process by which the earth has come to the shape and form in which it exists today. In places like the Grand Canyon, the layers are visible….the carving out of that massive hunk of earth broke through the encrustation to reveal what lies within. And what lies within is beautiful, is it not? What is true in the geology of nature is also true in the geology of a human soul…over the passage of a lifetime, elements we experience create layer upon layer so that the image of God in which we have been created: our beauty and creativity, our unique gifts and wiring, our life-pulse and heart-beat, the expression of divine essence that God called good, lie within an accumulation of layers, resulting from the natural process of living.

Layers of defense built up when we needed to protect ourselves from pain.

Layers of denial accumulated to shield ourselves from difficult truths.

Layers of habitual action we used when we didn’t want to risk vulnerability, on life's treadmill.

Stepping off the treadmill to enter the wilderness, as Jesus once did, these layers of defense denial, and habit may be sifted and sorted, laying bare one's essential character, deep passion and core qualities. But, as long as I consider this testing to be about pass/fail, right/wrong, good/bad…I dare not step off the treadmill. Remember what it was like to take a test, when you were younger? Some would tear eagerly into the test, confident, ready to show what they know. Others might have tried for a while, picking their way through the material, sometimes knowing, other times guessing, filling in the circles on the sheet randomly or making things up, hoping at least to get points for creativity. Some never tested well and approached every test with dread and anxiety, doomed to fail, because that’s what experience taught.

Only as I step off the treadmill to explore the contours and layers of my soul, with love and compassion, will I experience renewed vitality and hope. Could I, like Jesus, allow the Spirit to lead me to a place where I might give full attention to what is going on with my soul? (Matthew 4:1-11) Full, undivided attention. How about giving myself breathing space, these 40 days?! Sit still before God and try to listen to what God is saying to me. Reflect on who and what I love. Notice what is difficult to admit, even to myself. Name what I need. Do not judge or criticize or complain. Instead of telling God my troubles, say "thank you." Say, "I love you." Say, "here I am." The advantage of a treadmill is all-season, all weather access to exercise. The advantage to stepping OFF, is access to the Source that gives me life, the goodness in which I am being created, and the purpose toward which my life is moving.

Stepping off,

Cheryl