Christian Living

Walking on the Escalator

by Terry Barlow
04/10/14
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“This is a walk not an escalator or elevator ride!” The preacher declared. I thought of staring at the back of peoples’ heads on the elevator, the sometimes embarrassing silence. Or gliding through airports on conveyor belts that are often such a relief from the hustle of lockstep leg-races between flights. Walking involves taking steps, beginning from where we are then one at a time, and the occasional fall especially by infants just learning. Some falls are more serious than others. Some result in bruises or breaks, black eyes and other longer lasting deficits that are harder for ourselves and others to forget.  Forget or not we are to get up and keep trying.  "Every attempt at virtue sheds light, " someone wisely said.  Not every successful attempt but every attempt period.  (Conversely, the quote goes on,  continual self-indulgence results in a fog.)  But walking and escalators aren’t always mutually exclusive. Many in airports or department stores make use of both simultaneously, so that we can cover the same ground in half the time, as our ability is expanded upon by a power outside ourselves. This is more how it really is in the faith walk, perhaps, walking or climbing on an escalator that meets us where we are, honors our efforts, and draws us onward, upward, even downward by a energy we could never generate on our own.