Hanging On by Our Toes

Rev. Anne Selcoe
The Unitarian Church in Summit
June 20, 1999

Reading: Forgiving Our Fathers

These words that end a lovely movie I saw recently spoke deeply to me, and I wanted to share them with you. Today seemed so right to share them, in honor of Father’s Day. The movie, "Smoke Signals," is about two modern Coeur d’Alene Indians from the Northwestern United States. The young men, in their 20s, are cousins who have a series of adventures that center around the uncomfortable relationship that one of them has with his father.

How do we forgive our fathers?
Maybe in a dream?
Do we forgive our fathers for leaving us too often, or forever, when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage?
Or making us nervous because there never seemed to be any rage there at all?
Do we forgive our fathers for marrying, or not marrying, our mothers?
Or divorcing, or not divorcing, our mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning, for shutting doors, for speaking through walls?
Or never speaking, or never being silent?
Do we forgive our fathers in our age, or in theirs, or in their deaths -- saying it to them, or not saying it?
If we forgive our fathers, what is left?
How do we forgive our fathers?

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Reading

Today’s second reading is called Fear of Transformation. I found it one day -- literally found it -- inside a Xerox machine at another congregation. I don’t know who the author is -- so if you recognize it, I’d love to know who wrote it.

Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging onto a trapeze bar swinging along, or, for a few moments in my life, I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars.

Most of the time, I spend my life hanging on for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment. It carries me along a certain steady rate of swing and I have the feeling that I’m in control of my life. I know most of the right questions and even some of the right answers. But once in awhile, as I’m merrily (or not so merrily) swinging along, I look ahead of me into the distance, and what do I see? I see another trapeze bar swinging toward me. It’s empty, and I know, in that place in me that knows, that this new trapeze bar has my name on it. It is my next step, my growth, my aliveness coming to get me. In my heart-of-hearts, I know that for me to grow, I must release my grip on the present, well-known bar to move to the new one.

Each time this happens to me, I hope (no, I pray) that I won’t have to grab the new one. But in my knowing place I know that I must totally release my grasp on my old bar, and for some moment in time I must hurtle across space before I can grab onto the new bar. Each time I am filled with terror ... And so for an eternity that can last a microsecond or a thousand lifetimes, I soar across the dark void of “the past is gone, the future is not here yet.” It’s called transition. I have come to believe that it is the only place that real change occurs ...

I have noticed that, in our culture, this transition zone is looked upon as a “nothing,” a no place between places. Sure, the old trapeze-bar was real, and that new one coming towards me, I hope that’s real too. But the void in between? That’s just a scary, confusing, disorienting “nowhere” that must be gotten through as fast and as unconsciously as possible. What a waste! ... with all the pain and fear and feelings of being out-of-control that can (but not necessarily) accompany transitions, they are still the most alive, most growth-filled, passionate, expansive moments in our lives.

And so, transformation of fear may have nothing to do with making fear go away, but rather with giving ourselves permission to “hang out” in the transition between trapeze bars. Transforming our need to grab that new bar, any bar, is allowing ourselves to dwell in the only place where change really happens. It can be terrifying. It can also be enlightening, in the true sense of the word. Hurtling through the void, we just may learn how to fly.

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Sermon: Hanging On by Our Toes

Transition and transformation. Heady words, rich concepts. They seem to be recurring themes in life, and as I thought about “coming home” to Summit, and as I thought about this summer, they seem to be the themes I found myself wanting to reflect on. My reflection on these topics begins today -- as many religious moments seem to, at least in my experience -- by accident.

It began when I found myself watching a squirrel. A very creative, tenacious squirrel that had figured out how to shimmy down a “rodent-proof” bird feeder. You may have seen them: They have a wire cage around the feeder. There the squirrel hung, slurping out all the birdseed it could, hanging on upside down. Hanging on by its toes, literally hanging on by its toes, suspended high above the ground, swaying back and forth in the wind, as if it were on a trapeze.

It made me dizzy to watch the squirrel as it swung in the air, holding on by its toes. It made me think about holding on and it made me think about falling. It made me think about clinging and letting go. It made me think about the times we seem to be holding on with our toes.

There are certainly times I wish I had four sets of toes to hold on with, like that squirrel. There are certainly times I feel that if I weren’t hanging on by my toes, I wouldn’t be holding on at all, swinging in the breeze without a net, like that squirrel. That squirrel and all those thoughts reminded me of trapezes.

I have never swung from a trapeze, but I have walked a tightrope. Many years ago. A rope stretched between two strong posts in a sweltering classroom on the campus of the University of California, San Diego, my alma mater.

Nearly 15 years ago, I took a class in comedia del’arte technique as part of my B.A. in drama. It was quite a risk for me to take that class. Comedia del’arte is very physical stuff: tumbling and leaping and juggling and slapstick. And tightrope walking. Not my cup of tea, any of it. Not my usual comfort zone, that physical stuff. Especially the tightrope walking.

The rope was strung rather low to the ground and across only a rather short distance. But it was still high enough and long enough to warrant thick, cushiony pads being placed beneath it. It was still high enough and long enough to fall from.

That is the part I hate: the falling. These are the images that the word “falling” brings to mind: falling out (as in hair; falling out as in losing a friendship); falling down, falling into, falling off, falling prey to ... and the dictionary I looked in lists over 30 definitions under the word “fall,” most of which have what would be considered “negative” meanings.

That’s the part I hate: the falling. Just thinking about falling makes me catch my breath. Perhaps it’s because falling is a little too close to failing. Or perhaps it’s because falling still brings up images from the Christian “Fall,” the image of sin and punishment. (Or maybe it’s that feeling that comes while you’re falling: you know, that stomach-leaping-into-your-throat feeling ... you’ll never catch me on a roller coaster! I just don’t like that feeling. I just don’t like falling.)

When that comedia del’arte course was offered, I found myself not only drawn to it, but to the tightrope walking especially, following an inexplicable urging. For some unfathomable reason, I was drawn to the tightrope over and over again.

Today, I think I know why -- I think I understand the lesson I needed to learn from tightrope walking. It has to do with letting go, literally and metaphorically. It has to do with letting go, and falling. It has to do with learning to fall into a very empty space, into a void, in order to learn how to get across it. Learning to fall in order to know it’s safe to cross the void. It’s a paradox. Religion is full of paradoxes. In religious language, we might call this particular paradox transformation. The process of transformation is much like learning to tightrope walk.

Standing at the edge of a tightrope, readying to begin the journey across it, the journey over the open space below you to reach the other side, readying to go over the void to be somewhere new. Stepping off the nice safe platform, leaving behind that which is familiar.

Feet bared against the rope, take that first step into a new way of experiencing. There is nothing familiar about it. The rope, of course, is rounded, not flat, like the ground. The rope, of course, undulates up and down, it doesn’t remain stationary.

Take a step. Wobble. Don’t want to fall ... curl those toes and hang on at any cost. Don’t fall. Don’t fall into that unknown, empty space, don’t let heart rise into throat.

Ouch! The rope is not smooth, burns toes, cuts into them. The tighter you hold on with your toes, the more painful it is. The pain is shocking, all you can concentrate on. Balance is lost. And down you go. Down you fall.

Tightrope walking is a lot like the process of transformation.

I didn’t get it. The harder I held on by my toes, the more pain I felt. I was bleeding. I didn’t get it. The harder I tried to hold on, the harder I tried not to fall, the quicker I fell. It made no sense.

Isn’t the way to cross the rope to hold on with our toes?

Step onto the rope again. Knowing now that it is round and wriggly. Knowing now the pain of clinging too tightly. Go fast.

Yes. That’s it. Go very, very fast. Run across. All the way across, practically in one leap. Avoid the pain of holding on with toes. Avoid the empty space. Get to the other side, hurry! Get to the other side. Isn’t that the target? Isn’t that the aim?

When holding onto the tightrope with all my might was too painful, I learned to run across it, to run across the void. To ignore the scary in-between place, as if it weren’t even there.

Tightrope walking is like the process of transformation.

Running across the rope wasn’t satisfying. It wasn’t exhilarating. It wasn’t even particularly skillful.

I’ll tell you a little secret: It’s not very hard to get across a tightrope when you practically hop over it. When you barely touch the rope. When you barely notice the empty space. You might as well just walk across the floor and forget the whole thing.

None of this made any sense. It made no sense at all. Running over the scary place, ignoring it, avoiding the pain I feared might be there if I fell, left me dissatisfied -- left me with just another kind of pain. Holding on tightly, holding on by my toes, avoiding the pain I feared might be there if I fell, left me bleeding -- left me with just another kind of pain. Neither way got me to someplace new, the other side. Neither way got me across that empty space. But what other options were there?

Yes, tightrope walking is a lot like the process of transformation.

I kept on walking that rope. I still ran across it as fast as I could, sometimes.

I still hung on by my toes, sometimes.

I still didn’t feel satisfied. I still bled. I still didn’t quite get it.

As I stood poised to start across the rope one day, not sure whether I would be running or holding on by my toes, my friend Chris came to my side, his hand outstretched toward mine. I looked at him for a minute, not understanding. He stood there, smiling a little. Slowly, I reached out my hand to take his.

Together, we started across. I used his hand to balance against. It was strong. It was sure. We moved together, slowly, I wobbling just a bit, finding my way, feeling my way. I felt the rope beneath my feet, touching it lightly with my toes. I felt the empty space beneath me, stepping lightly through it. With great intention, we made it to the middle of the span.

We were at the middle of the span. He let go of my hand.

No, no, come back! What are you doing? Can’t hold on. Too late, too late to turn back. Not ready to go forward. Holding on by my toes won’t work. What can I do? What can I do? I can let go. Yes. I can fall. Yes. I can fall. I can let go. See what happens -- land in the void. I can fall. I can fall IcanfallIcanfallIcanfall.

And I did. I fell. Not with much grace. Letting out a bit of a groan as I landed roughly. It was painful. There was pain falling into the void. Learning to tightrope walk can be a lot like transformation.

As I sat there, rubbing a bruised ego as well as a bruised knee, I looked up from the mats and saw Chris standing next to me, hand outstretched toward mine once more.

I felt like hitting it away. I felt like spitting into it. What I really felt like doing was grabbing it and holding it tightly, as tightly as I’d held onto the rope with my toes. What I did instead was simply to take his hand, stand up, and get back onto the tightrope where I had fallen off. I teetered a bit, regaining my balance in the middle, holding onto Chris’ hand for just a moment once I’d gotten back up. Then I let go. Boy, did I wobble. Boy, did the rope shake and shiver. It was scary. I wanted to jump off. Instead, I kept going, wobbling and shaking and shivering all the way. I kept going. I got to the other side.

I got to the other side, going through the void. I learned to tightrope walk by falling.

I haven’t walked a tightrope in years, not a literal one, anyway. But there seem to be metaphorical tightropes in my path over and over again. Perhaps you have “tightropes” to cross in your lives, too.

Some people hold onto unhealthy behaviors instead of crossing into the unknown of new and better choices. Holding on like this can be like tightrope walking until your feet bleed.

Some people are in pain and try to rush through it, hoping to get to the other side without experiencing all there is to experience in the void. Rushing the process is like pretending the rope isn’t there.

Somewhere between holding on with our toes until they bleed and rushing through in numbness is a great moment of wobbliness: a great moment of transformative possibility. In that moment of not knowing whether we are going to fall or walk on is found the beginning of transformation.

That wobbly, wavering moment seems to be the key to transformation. It seems to be the key to walking “the path of creative insecurity,” says a UU minister. And it takes trust to journey that path.

Creative insecurity. Trusting the path of creative insecurity -- trusting something unseen, trusting so many unknowns -- may not sound very Unitarian Universalist. For, as Unitarian Universalists, reason is the primary lens through which many of us view the world. And it’s a powerful lens to use. Trusting something unseen is not very reasonable ... and yet, by walking a tightrope, I finally understand, finally really know on the deepest level, what the first Source of the UU Principles and Purposes is: I finally understand what the “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life” is. Falling is a part of it. In learning to fall and get back up and keep wobbling forward, I learned that I was “held up” by something much more profound than a rope.

Creative insecurity. Tightrope walking. Transformation. Falling. Falling isn’t so frightening anymore, not when it’s part of the transformation process. Here are some other images of falling: free falling, falling leaves, waterfall, falling head over heels in love. The Fall, not as in the Christian symbol of sin and punishment, but autumn, a season of transition boldly facing the world. There would be no spring without a fall.

“Trust is for those ... who are equally scared and thrilled to have yet another chance every day to spend time loving, learning and laughing,” says Tom Owen-Towle. Trust is an integral part of transformation. I would add that transformation is for those who are equally scared and thrilled to have yet another chance to walk, wobble and fall into the void en route to a new beginning. So may it be. Amen.