Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Life (06/15/06)
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TITLE: Rolling with the Punches�Life is Cyclical | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Crow
06/22/06 -
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Somehow, in adulthood, we forget just how cyclical life is, especially if we live where landscapes change little throughout the seasons.
Forgetting that life leads us up ladders and then pushes us down chutes, we land on our bottoms at the foot of the slide with a jolt and cry despondently.
“How did that happen? How did I get here?” we ask over and over. We read self-help books, talk to friends, talk to counselors, pray more, read the Bible more, over eat or under eat, and still God doesn’t seem moved to provide answers. The bruise on the backside sets in, and despairing of ever being at the top of the slide where we could see across the whole playground again, we’re convinced we’ll be sitting there in the dust forever.
In my experience, despair, or hopelessness, is the enemy of life. No matter what calamities sucker punch us, if we possess even a little bit of hope, we can survive. Hope works for us like a bigger, stronger kid who takes us by the hand, helps us up, and takes us to the teacher. Hope is the precursor to faith, and the Bible tells us that just a little faith on our part gets God’s attention in a big way.
Note that while we make our way to the “Teacher,” there are humbling moments to accept. The first is admitting that we fell, that we lost control. We grown ups don’t like being out of control, now, do we? It’s maddening!
Secondly, we have to reach up for hope and faith from the bottom-most position. We are laid low. The only productive way to go is up, but being all banged-up, we need a big hand to help set us back on our feet. Attempts at self-reliance when I’m on my spiritual or emotional fanny never work for me. But humility is not easy. We like to believe we’ve got life by the tail and that we create our own destinies. As admirable as that sounds, it reminds of when I’ve gone to theme parks and told myself and others that I can handle the rollercoaster, knowing full well how prone to motion sickness I am. I just don’t like admitting my weakness.
I’ve been thinking of the lyrics to a couple of Sinatra songs which exalt the opposite of humility. “My Way,” a virtual hymn unto oneself, boasts, “For what is a man, what has he got? /If not himself, then he has naught/To say the things he truly feels/And not the words of one who kneels . . . . “How deceived was the soul who penned those words.
Or what about “That’s Life?” the plucky ballad that brags about rolling with the punches, until you get to the lines: “But if there's nothing shakin' come this here July/I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball and die.” Hopelessness curls us into fetal balls of despair.
I now try to remind myself how cyclical life is. On days when I bottom-out at the park, I rehearse some of the most comforting words I’ve heard: “This too, shall pass.” This small, simple assertion sparks hope in me. Hope reaches out to join hands with faith. Faith takes me straight to God, who wipes my tears, cleanses my wounds and whispers kind words in my ear. Before I know it, He’s turning me around and sending me back to the playground, where I feel his watchful eye on me, even as I step on the first rung of the next ladder in my life.
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