Taking the leap

I often am moved or humbled or challenged by sermons at our church, but tonight's message especially spoke to me.  (When the sermon video gets posted online, I'll link it here!)

John Ortberg spoke on letting go and trusting God - a message that sounds so cliche that it seems impossible to be touched by it.

Yet I was caught by surprise by how it touched a very vulnerable part of me - my struggle with fear.

You see, he recorded the sermon at a gym called "Circus Center," a place where people can take classes from trapeze artists. As John explained why he decided to present the sermon there, he quotes Henri Nouwen:

"The Flying Rodleighs are trapeze artists who perform in the German circus Simoneit-Barum. When the circus came to Freiburg two years ago, my friends Franz and Reny invited me and my father to see the show. I will never forget how enraptured I became when I first saw the Rodleighs move through the air, flying and catching as elegant dancers. The next day, I returned to the circus to see them again and introduced myself to them as one of their great fans. They invited me to attend their practice sessions, gave me free tickets, asked me to dinner, and suggested I travel with them for a week in the near future. I did, and we became good friends.

"One day, I was sitting with Rodleigh, the leader of the troupe, in his caravan, talking about flying. He said, 'As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher. The public might think that I am the great star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has to be there for me with split-second precision and grab me out of the air as I come to him in the long jump.' 'How does it work?' I asked. 'The secret,' Rodleigh said, 'is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron behind the catchbar.'

" 'You do nothing!' I said, surprised. 'Nothing,' Rodleigh repeated. 'The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher. I am not supposed to catch Joe. It's Joe's task to catch me. If I grabbed Joe's wrists, I might break them, or he might break mine, and that would be the end for both of us. A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.'

"When Rodleigh said this with so much conviction, the words of Jesus flashed through my mind: 'Father into your hands I commend my Spirit.' Dying is trusting in the catcher. To care for the dying is to say, 'Don't be afraid. Remember that you are the beloved child of God. He will be there when you make your long jump. Don't try to grab him; he will grab you. Just stretch out your arms and hands and trust, trust, trust.' "

I am terribly afraid of falling from a height - even a tiny one. Back in college days, when we had do do this trust exercise, where you fold your arms in front of your chest and fall back like a plank so your friend(s) catch you from behind, it took my friends the course of a whole evening and a dozen tries to convince me to do it.

In Hong Kong, we would go on a junk boat trip every few months.  During one of those trips, people started jumping off from the top deck.  Even tiny kids started to do it.  And I couldn't.  Even with the whole boat goading me on, I couldn't do it.  The next junk trip, I tried.  Some of my friends who were scared before did it.  I still couldn't.

Each time, I went home disappointed in myself, and felt ashamed in front of my friends.  It was a  little thing - maybe even a tad frivolous, but I hated how it pointed to something deeper - my own soul being controlled by fear.

Finally, finally, on the junk boat trip that was our farewell trip before Hong Kong, I decided I had to do it, or  I wouldn't be able to have closure.  Well, it almost didn't happen, had it not been for Ryan holding my hand when we jumped and semi-dragging me in.  (A good metaphor for marriage, no?)

Little did I know, that on that junk boat trip, I was a few days pregnant with Zeke.  And we were about to jump off something much scarier than a little junk boat.

So you see, this flying - this letting go, letting the catcher catch - it speaks to me both literally and as a metaphor.

Three years on, God has peeled by the many layers of fear through the journeys of marriage, parenthood, and moving. He showed me how to react to fear by trying to plan things out better, or by lashing out in anger. Now, we are on the cusp of stepping off another cliff.  Maybe a smaller one, but still, it feels like a cliff - becoming a family of four, living through the newborn days again.

And  I am so thankful for these words:

A flyer must fly. And a catcher must catch.


"Don't try to grab him; he will grab you. Just stretch out your arms and hands and trust, trust, trust."