On the day when Lasallian Volunteer (LV) Orientation ended, we all had a free night to do as we pleased. Most, if not all, of us LVs headed into Chicago for the evening. One of the LV staff members had arranged an opportunity in Chicago for those of us LVs who were interested to participate in trapeze activities. I joined her so I could try trapeze!
I signed up to do trapeze because of some elucidation on trapeze which I had heard a couple of months earlier. I heard this insight when I had attended a three-day workshop on the Catholic writer Henri Nouwen's interpretation of Rembrandt's painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son. Nouwen's literary executrix, Sue Mosteller, who also lived at L'Arche Daybreak, the faith-based community in which Nouwen had lived, presented the workshop. Since she had lived in the same community as Nouwen for years while he was there, she got to know him, his musings and his writings fairly well.
During the workshop, Sue shared how Nouwen became mesmerized by trapeze, the art of swinging through the air, leaping forward and being caught by someone else also swinging through the air. He concluded that the people who leap toward each other and who catch each other symbolize us and God in our relationship with each other. Sue explained how Nouwen concluded that the truly remarkable party in the trapeze is not the one who leaps, but rather the one who catches, since the one who catches is analogous to God. She said that just as one person leaps in the trapeze act, trusting the catcher, we too must make leaps of faith, trusting in God.
When I heard Sue's explication of Nouwen's trapeze philosophy, she delivered words which had a profoundly transformative effect on me. Up until the workshop, in my life I had still been clinging to personal property which I no longer needed. I hadn't felt able to bring myself to sell the car I owned, even though I had just been living abroad while in the Peace Corps in Morocco for two years, and thus hadn't been driving it for those years. I hadn't given it up although after my return from Morocco, I'd been staying with family and friends who either had their own cars they were letting me use and/or who lived in areas with great public transportation. I'd felt that I couldn't let go of it despite how I knew that as an LV, I'd be living in a community where I knew I'd have access to cars I could drive. In short, even though my life already was one in which I didn't need a car, indeed although my life had changed years earlier into a life in which I didn't need a car, I still wasn't accepting that reality. I was living in fear, fear that I couldn't sell the car since I might end up needing it at an undetermined--and increasingly unlikely--point in the future. I wasn't acknowledging the need to get rid of it and trust in God to take care of my needs. Yet when I heard Sue explain that, like the one who leaps in the trapeze act, we must take the leap of faith and trust in God, my spirit shifted. I realized that I had to sell the car and trust that God would satisfy my transportation needs.
Having been inspired by Nouwen's conception of the trapeze as a metaphor for our relationship with God and how we must trust in Him, I was interested in actually trying trapeze. Having only conceptualized trapeze as a spiritual metaphor, I wanted to try it so I would be able to turn it over as a spiritual analogy in my mind in the context of actually having tried it. I knew that by physically swinging through the air and feeling the associated physiological sensations and the emotional effects produced in me by leaping, swinging, and reaching from the trapeze bar, I would be able to consider it from first-hand knowledge.
Thus I signed up to try trapeze. The folks running the trapeze spot were quite pleasant. That helped! It also helped a little bit that the trapeze folks operate in a park close to the shore of Lake Michigan, a beautiful outdoor location.
Once we had gotten harnesses attached to us, and gotten the latches on the ends of ropes clicked into the harnesses on us, each of us took turns climbing to the top of the trapeze platform. Generally I am unbothered by heights. But under certain conditions I start to get a little nervous. In this case, we were climbing one of those metal ladders which extends to potentially double its length. Thus I wasn't worried about it coming apart, but it just didn't stay exactly still as I stepped on it. So I climbed a bit slowly up to the trapeze platform, which I finally reached.
The fellow on the platform told me not to worry, that the ladder was firmly bolted into both the deck on the ground and into the trapeze platform. That eased my mind, as did the net which more than adequately lay under all of the space in which I would be swinging. Still, I was a little apprehensive standing up on the trapeze platform, perhaps 25 feet above the ground. He assured me that I would be fine if I followed his instructions, which I did. He took off the ropes which had secured me when I had been climbing, and attached new ones which would secure me after I leaped from the platform. He told me to use my left hand to hold onto a metal frame on the platform. Then he told me to step forward and put all ten toes just slightly over the edge of the platform! He had me grab the trapeze bar with my right hand as I continued holding with my left hand onto the metal frame on the platform. Then he was holding onto me and leaning backward. Despite this secure arrangement, I found it difficult to ignore my instincts, which were kicking in and setting alarms off in my head as he told me to lean forward and grab the rest of the trapeze bar with my left hand. Eventually I did so. Then he told me to take, as he put it, a little bunny leap off of the platform.
I took a little leap and voila, I was flying through the air! As each of us hung from the platform bar, the staff gave us instructions on what to do. They tell someone hanging from the bar by their hands to swing their knees up to the bar when they're at the end of their swing because that's when someone is the lightest. Thus it's easiest to get your knees up and over the bar at that very moment. I tend to lag a bit with verbal instructions; that is, it takes me a little while to process what people say to me. Thus, it proved a little difficult for me to get my knees above the trapeze bar. Although I'm a bit slow when I listen, I did get it, and I got my knees over the bar. When I swung back to the other end, they had me let go of the bar, so that I was then hanging from the bar upside down by my knees! Then they told me to stretch out my arms toward Lake Michigan. Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm upside down, I'm rather disoriented. I was putting out my arms in front of me, but they wanted me to thrust my arms in back of me. They tried a different way of phrasing it: they told me to put my arms toward the net. That did it! I was reaching out my arms just as I was supposed to do! On the way back, when I swung to the end, they had me grab the bar with my hands. At the other end, they had me swing my knees down, then they had me let go, and down to the net I fell.
We each got to practice this routine a few times. That helped! It helps to practice being upside down, getting one's knees over a trapeze bar, and swinging from one knees, when one has never done it!
Last we got to try leaping and getting caught by a catcher who was also swinging from a trapeze bar. Here, though, I wasn't just jumping off the trapeze platform whenever I wanted. The catcher was swinging on his own trapeze bar, on the far side of the net. Once I was in position on the platform, he'd shout, "Ready!" That word was my cue to bend my knees and be ready to jump. Then he'd shout, "Hup!" That word was the cue to jump. Since he precisely timed his shout, it was crucial immediately to jump. One can't hesitate, or else one will be late in arriving at the spot where the catcher can catch you.
Once he had shouted, "Hup!" I jumped right away! Reaching the far end, knees up and over the bar. Back at the end next to the platform, hands down. Then one has to reach out... I put out my arms... Yet I was disoriented, as happens to me when I'm hanging upside down by my knees from a trapeze bar! Yet without anyone yelling any correction to me, I self-corrected and stretched my arms out wide... but because I had initially reached in the wrong direction, I had thrown off my momentum. When I then tried to reach toward the catcher, and when we reached the point when we were closest to each other, we were too far apart from each other for him to catch me. Later I saw a picture of the catcher and me reaching toward each other. Perhaps our hands were a foot apart.
Despite not being caught, I was pleased that when I dropped from the bar, at least I successfully did a back flip on my way down to the net. Again, it is critical to let go when one is at the end of one's swing. Then one is the lightest. Thus when one lets go at that moment, one is best positioned to do a back flip.
One must know what one is doing to be able to do trapeze well. The LV staff member who arranged the trapeze opportunity for us is quite skilled at trapeze. We saw her complete some talented feats up in the air, including propping herself up so that she was sitting with her legs wide open on the trapeze bar!
However, not only is she skilled at actually flying trapeze, but she is also skilled at taking analogous leaps. In some fitting symbolism, she has since moved on from working for Lasallian Volunteers. She left her familiar job at Lasallian Volunteers, taking the leap to take a new job, which also entails moving to a new city, to try something new.
We are called to make leaps of faith in our lives, in the choices we make. We are called to give up things in our lives which have proven to be obsolete or which otherwise hold us back, whether they be possessions, or opinions, or unhealthy emotions such as anger, greed, sluggishness or pride. We are drawn to let go of the ego which controls us, to forget about an insult someone has made against us. We are asked to make the leap of faith to give someone the benefit of the doubt, to figure that perhaps he or she truly was in the right, and to forgive him or her during a disagreement. We are invited to make such leaps into unknown territory which makes us vulnerable and uncomfortable and unsettled, because in doing so we stand to improve ourselves, to evolve into more advanced, caring, understanding, loving, compassionate, kind human beings, drawing closer to the ideal which Jesus set for us. Once we finally do make such leaps, we will feel far better than we do clinging to our fear, which would have us remain standing on the platform for days, weeks, months or years, which would control us to our own detriment, both directly to ourselves and indirectly to ourselves through the unfortunate effects our fear has on our relationships with others. Once we take the leap to love our neighbor, we will also love ourselves and God more.
As far as I am concerned, I do sincerely hope that I am as good at taking leaps as God wants me to be. I have no aspiration greater than this in my life.
I signed up to do trapeze because of some elucidation on trapeze which I had heard a couple of months earlier. I heard this insight when I had attended a three-day workshop on the Catholic writer Henri Nouwen's interpretation of Rembrandt's painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son. Nouwen's literary executrix, Sue Mosteller, who also lived at L'Arche Daybreak, the faith-based community in which Nouwen had lived, presented the workshop. Since she had lived in the same community as Nouwen for years while he was there, she got to know him, his musings and his writings fairly well.
During the workshop, Sue shared how Nouwen became mesmerized by trapeze, the art of swinging through the air, leaping forward and being caught by someone else also swinging through the air. He concluded that the people who leap toward each other and who catch each other symbolize us and God in our relationship with each other. Sue explained how Nouwen concluded that the truly remarkable party in the trapeze is not the one who leaps, but rather the one who catches, since the one who catches is analogous to God. She said that just as one person leaps in the trapeze act, trusting the catcher, we too must make leaps of faith, trusting in God.
When I heard Sue's explication of Nouwen's trapeze philosophy, she delivered words which had a profoundly transformative effect on me. Up until the workshop, in my life I had still been clinging to personal property which I no longer needed. I hadn't felt able to bring myself to sell the car I owned, even though I had just been living abroad while in the Peace Corps in Morocco for two years, and thus hadn't been driving it for those years. I hadn't given it up although after my return from Morocco, I'd been staying with family and friends who either had their own cars they were letting me use and/or who lived in areas with great public transportation. I'd felt that I couldn't let go of it despite how I knew that as an LV, I'd be living in a community where I knew I'd have access to cars I could drive. In short, even though my life already was one in which I didn't need a car, indeed although my life had changed years earlier into a life in which I didn't need a car, I still wasn't accepting that reality. I was living in fear, fear that I couldn't sell the car since I might end up needing it at an undetermined--and increasingly unlikely--point in the future. I wasn't acknowledging the need to get rid of it and trust in God to take care of my needs. Yet when I heard Sue explain that, like the one who leaps in the trapeze act, we must take the leap of faith and trust in God, my spirit shifted. I realized that I had to sell the car and trust that God would satisfy my transportation needs.
Having been inspired by Nouwen's conception of the trapeze as a metaphor for our relationship with God and how we must trust in Him, I was interested in actually trying trapeze. Having only conceptualized trapeze as a spiritual metaphor, I wanted to try it so I would be able to turn it over as a spiritual analogy in my mind in the context of actually having tried it. I knew that by physically swinging through the air and feeling the associated physiological sensations and the emotional effects produced in me by leaping, swinging, and reaching from the trapeze bar, I would be able to consider it from first-hand knowledge.
Thus I signed up to try trapeze. The folks running the trapeze spot were quite pleasant. That helped! It also helped a little bit that the trapeze folks operate in a park close to the shore of Lake Michigan, a beautiful outdoor location.
Once we had gotten harnesses attached to us, and gotten the latches on the ends of ropes clicked into the harnesses on us, each of us took turns climbing to the top of the trapeze platform. Generally I am unbothered by heights. But under certain conditions I start to get a little nervous. In this case, we were climbing one of those metal ladders which extends to potentially double its length. Thus I wasn't worried about it coming apart, but it just didn't stay exactly still as I stepped on it. So I climbed a bit slowly up to the trapeze platform, which I finally reached.
The fellow on the platform told me not to worry, that the ladder was firmly bolted into both the deck on the ground and into the trapeze platform. That eased my mind, as did the net which more than adequately lay under all of the space in which I would be swinging. Still, I was a little apprehensive standing up on the trapeze platform, perhaps 25 feet above the ground. He assured me that I would be fine if I followed his instructions, which I did. He took off the ropes which had secured me when I had been climbing, and attached new ones which would secure me after I leaped from the platform. He told me to use my left hand to hold onto a metal frame on the platform. Then he told me to step forward and put all ten toes just slightly over the edge of the platform! He had me grab the trapeze bar with my right hand as I continued holding with my left hand onto the metal frame on the platform. Then he was holding onto me and leaning backward. Despite this secure arrangement, I found it difficult to ignore my instincts, which were kicking in and setting alarms off in my head as he told me to lean forward and grab the rest of the trapeze bar with my left hand. Eventually I did so. Then he told me to take, as he put it, a little bunny leap off of the platform.
I took a little leap and voila, I was flying through the air! As each of us hung from the platform bar, the staff gave us instructions on what to do. They tell someone hanging from the bar by their hands to swing their knees up to the bar when they're at the end of their swing because that's when someone is the lightest. Thus it's easiest to get your knees up and over the bar at that very moment. I tend to lag a bit with verbal instructions; that is, it takes me a little while to process what people say to me. Thus, it proved a little difficult for me to get my knees above the trapeze bar. Although I'm a bit slow when I listen, I did get it, and I got my knees over the bar. When I swung back to the other end, they had me let go of the bar, so that I was then hanging from the bar upside down by my knees! Then they told me to stretch out my arms toward Lake Michigan. Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm upside down, I'm rather disoriented. I was putting out my arms in front of me, but they wanted me to thrust my arms in back of me. They tried a different way of phrasing it: they told me to put my arms toward the net. That did it! I was reaching out my arms just as I was supposed to do! On the way back, when I swung to the end, they had me grab the bar with my hands. At the other end, they had me swing my knees down, then they had me let go, and down to the net I fell.
We each got to practice this routine a few times. That helped! It helps to practice being upside down, getting one's knees over a trapeze bar, and swinging from one knees, when one has never done it!
Last we got to try leaping and getting caught by a catcher who was also swinging from a trapeze bar. Here, though, I wasn't just jumping off the trapeze platform whenever I wanted. The catcher was swinging on his own trapeze bar, on the far side of the net. Once I was in position on the platform, he'd shout, "Ready!" That word was my cue to bend my knees and be ready to jump. Then he'd shout, "Hup!" That word was the cue to jump. Since he precisely timed his shout, it was crucial immediately to jump. One can't hesitate, or else one will be late in arriving at the spot where the catcher can catch you.
Once he had shouted, "Hup!" I jumped right away! Reaching the far end, knees up and over the bar. Back at the end next to the platform, hands down. Then one has to reach out... I put out my arms... Yet I was disoriented, as happens to me when I'm hanging upside down by my knees from a trapeze bar! Yet without anyone yelling any correction to me, I self-corrected and stretched my arms out wide... but because I had initially reached in the wrong direction, I had thrown off my momentum. When I then tried to reach toward the catcher, and when we reached the point when we were closest to each other, we were too far apart from each other for him to catch me. Later I saw a picture of the catcher and me reaching toward each other. Perhaps our hands were a foot apart.
Despite not being caught, I was pleased that when I dropped from the bar, at least I successfully did a back flip on my way down to the net. Again, it is critical to let go when one is at the end of one's swing. Then one is the lightest. Thus when one lets go at that moment, one is best positioned to do a back flip.
One must know what one is doing to be able to do trapeze well. The LV staff member who arranged the trapeze opportunity for us is quite skilled at trapeze. We saw her complete some talented feats up in the air, including propping herself up so that she was sitting with her legs wide open on the trapeze bar!
However, not only is she skilled at actually flying trapeze, but she is also skilled at taking analogous leaps. In some fitting symbolism, she has since moved on from working for Lasallian Volunteers. She left her familiar job at Lasallian Volunteers, taking the leap to take a new job, which also entails moving to a new city, to try something new.
We are called to make leaps of faith in our lives, in the choices we make. We are called to give up things in our lives which have proven to be obsolete or which otherwise hold us back, whether they be possessions, or opinions, or unhealthy emotions such as anger, greed, sluggishness or pride. We are drawn to let go of the ego which controls us, to forget about an insult someone has made against us. We are asked to make the leap of faith to give someone the benefit of the doubt, to figure that perhaps he or she truly was in the right, and to forgive him or her during a disagreement. We are invited to make such leaps into unknown territory which makes us vulnerable and uncomfortable and unsettled, because in doing so we stand to improve ourselves, to evolve into more advanced, caring, understanding, loving, compassionate, kind human beings, drawing closer to the ideal which Jesus set for us. Once we finally do make such leaps, we will feel far better than we do clinging to our fear, which would have us remain standing on the platform for days, weeks, months or years, which would control us to our own detriment, both directly to ourselves and indirectly to ourselves through the unfortunate effects our fear has on our relationships with others. Once we take the leap to love our neighbor, we will also love ourselves and God more.
As far as I am concerned, I do sincerely hope that I am as good at taking leaps as God wants me to be. I have no aspiration greater than this in my life.
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