Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came,
and he pushed,
and they flew.
-Christopher Logue
Fear is a funny thing. Fear takes our delicately virginal-white sheet of untainted paper, and with its giant, devouring, powerful hands it sweeps in and crumples us into a fine tousled mess of confusion, distress, and defeat. That could be the very end of it if we allowed for such a travesty. End of show. Final chapter. Cue the credits. In fact, we could snuggle our way into the warm and comfortably unchallenging confines of a dark and unkempt wastebasket and be perfectly complacent until the end of our days on earth. Besides, one man’s trash is another’s treasure, right? Rotten banana peels and half wet tea bags aren’t the worst we could face in life. It’s not that bad.
But what if we took the opposite approach? What if we embraced our new shape and used it to our advantage? When you think about it, a crumpled piece of paper travels a lot further through space and time than an unaffected white square floating unconsciously throughout its existence.
What if we jumped off the cliff instead? What if we took the risks we never thought we could?
When I allow myself the freedom to create authentically; when I forget the external reflection of my actions and acknowledge the gently nudging positive voices deep inside of me; when I push past the fear and take a step toward the unknown by utilizing my gifts for the benefit and joy of others; and when I make a truthful connection with another human being; then, and only then, do I experience the most conscious and life-altering jolt of the sacred throughout my body and beyond…into the realm of my spirit.
And they came,
and He pushed,
and we flew.
Awesome post! Couple of thoughts:
ReplyDeleteFirst, several times recently at Theology on Tap we've discussed the topic of change vs. consistency or the value of trying new things against the comfort of having things stay the same. There are probably a lot of ways that dichotomy can be presented (structure/chaos, change/consistency, progressive/conservative, etc.), but I love how the paper ball image shows how even something radically different can provide it's own structure and consistency, even if that structure is more ball-like (ball-like being a highly theological term :) ). This made sense in my head.
Second, this made me think that it would be an awesome worship idea to make everyone take the safety net of the our bulletins, crumple them up into balls, and throw them across the room forcing us to engage in worship in a different way. Some day this needs to happen.