First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany

“The Spirituality of Falling”

Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore, January 11, 2004

Readings

Poem by Jenna Polk, 22, of Sagola, Michigan

I watched them once, from the bleachers, squirming in

my down coat, though farmers stomped snow off their boots at the entrance
and women plucked pine needles from their braids—
I watched them, the circus women
dangling from the rafters without a net
below.
Red costumes, feathers, heels
they fluttered in the spotlight, past terror
past reason,
twirling, spinning, swinging
without regard for the hardwood floor.
I didn’t understand
sitting there on the wooden bench
wringing my hands
them entwined above me, gripping, letting
go—one woman would detach from the joist and
fall
red skirts swirling
plunging
a flaming meteor
gathering speed…until the other woman
grabbed her heels
and flung the falling woman
back up
both smiling and waving.
(This is foolishness, my uncle shook his head, stuffing
fistfuls of popcorn into his cheeks, there’s nothing to catch them)
I didn’t understand these perilous flirtations, this drive to perform without
harness or net, trusting a partner to pluck
an ankle out of the air as
casually as a woman plucks a flower
and tucks it behind her ear.
Don’t some meteors burn away in the clouds?
Others meet resistance, skipping off the atmosphere
those shooting stars which hit
the ground leave behind a crater:
terrible odds for survival.
Was it a measure of faith? Beyond
fear, where the egg falling from a nest
the tower tumbling down
the meteor hurling through clouds, where
something reaches out
catching all. I watched them once
the circus women twirling, trusting
and later heard that
somewhere in Wisconsin or Minnesota
in a small town
spinning
one woman missed
the other fell
police ended the act, fining
the circus for not using nets
(I told you they were in for trouble
my uncle clucked his tongue)
I didn’t understand
and became scared of heights—
that if I fell
there might not be a net to
catch me

From Philip Simmons book, "Learning to Fall"

In the northern part of our town there’s a stream that comes down out of the mountains, and at one place that we call Pothole it makes a pool of emerald clear water ten feet deep.Every summer from my boyhood until quite recently I would climb the rocks high above that pool and fling my body into the air.A summer was not complete without the thrill of that rushing descent, the slap of the water, the shock of its icy embrace.I have a photograph, taken two years ago, of what would prove to be my last such jump.In the foreground, seen from the back, my wife stands waist-deep in water, shading her eyes with one hand, watching.She has never approved of this ritual, something most grown men leave behind with their teenage years, but there I am, halfway down, pale against the dark rocks that I rush past.You can see my wet footprints on the rock over my head that I’ve just left.My eyes are focused downward on the water rushing toward my feet, and I am happy, terrified, alive.

Sermon

I don’t remember being afraid of falling when I was young.After all it is a natural part of growing up. A baby’s first steps usually end in a fall, followed by many more until the baby fully connects the head to the legs and feet.As I was growing up, I skinned my knees falling countless times.I fell under piles of bodies playing football with my friends, I climbed and fell out of trees, I wrestled and tussled with my sister, fell down the stairs and off my bike.At least once a day, I suppose, I fell down.And I didn’t think twice about it.

For some people, like Simmon’s jump, regular falling continues into adulthood.They actually like to fall on purpose.I’ve been reading about something fairly new called BASE jumping.BASE stands for Building, Antenna, Span and Earth.If you jump off a Building, Antenna, Bridge and Cliff, and your parachute opens before you hit the ground and survive you can join a rather exclusive club.Around 700 people have earned this honor since 1981.I’m not sure how many have died trying.

The terminal velocity of a falling human body is about 120 feet per second.When jumping off a 500 foot bridge, they have just a couple of seconds to get their chute open.This turns out to be plenty of time, I was surprised to discover.Paratroopers usually jump at around 800 feet and even wait a few seconds before opening their special chutes to get to the ground quickly.Needless to say, BASE jumping is usually done by very experienced sky divers who have good control of their equipment.

You’ll be happy to know I’m definitely not interested in learning to BASE jump.In fact, I’m realizing just how much my life has changed from my youth in regard to falling.Now, I suppose I go for months without falling down.And when I do, it is almost always a surprise, slipping on a patch of ice, tripping on an uneven sidewalk, stumbling on a stair, or smashing into someone.And even then, this doesn’t happen very often because I have a pretty good sense of balance.I’m pretty fast on my feet.

I don’t have the same feeling about falling as I did as a child.Often I’m wearing nice clothes I don’t want to get dirty.I’m a little further away from the ground than when I was eight years old.I hit the ground harder and bruise more easily.

This reluctance to fall is particularly noticeable to me with bike riding.As many of you know, in 1977 I was hit by a car while riding a moped and suffered a broken leg that took several years to heal.That accident didn’t stop me from owning and riding a bike.A few months after moving to Albany, my bike was stolen.Because I didn’t have a safe place to store it, I didn’t replace it.After moving to our new house, I bought a Trek hybrid.It is the best bicycle I’ve ever owned, a joy to ride.Living as we now do, near the Heldeberg escarpment, I took to the hills, delighting in the bike’s climbing ability.Coming down the hills, however, was another matter.When I was a young daredevil, it thrilled me to zoom down a hill at top speed.Ever since flying, falling, and sliding across an eight-lane intersection 26 years ago, the thought fills me with dread.

In middle age, falling is taking on a new, more ominous meaning for me.I know what it is like to recover from broken bones.I’ve watched Philomena struggle with a frozen shoulder.I’ve been bothered with pains in my knees.Being a husband and father, my family depends on me now.Today, I find self-preservation trumping my search for adventure more and more.

These are some of the thoughts that were going through my mind as I read Philip Simmons book titled “Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life” a couple of weeks ago.Simmons, a Unitarian Universalist who died in July of 2002, was an English Professor at Lake Forest College in Illinois when he was diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease at the tender age of 35.One of his first symptoms was falling down unexpectedly.

Simmons was a man who has climbed all forty-eight peaks above 4000 feet in New Hampshire.He has been active and athletic his whole life.He started climbing when he was six and stopped only when the disease would no longer permit it.Because he was prone to falling at this point in the disease progression, he had to be extremely mindful of very step he took, like a Buddhist practicing walking meditation.A heedless moment and he’ll be on his face with a bloody lip or a bruised nose.

Now if I were in his situation, I’d want to figure out a solution to protect myself from injury, perhaps inflatable underwear or something.I think my approach to learning to fall would be to remember my short course of Aikido training when I was younger.One of the first things you learn when studying the martial arts is how to fall.That’s because you’re going to get tossed around a lot and if you don’t learn to fall, you’ll get hurt.Stunt artists learn to fall as do dancers and athletes.Watching them fall, they can be quite graceful, even beautiful.

Thinking about learning to fall, Simmons makes a very wise observation.For him, it is not a problem to be solved because the progression of the disease meant there will be no solution.ALS was forcing him to change how he had to approach living in general.He writes:

…For at its deepest levels life is not a problem but a mystery.The distinction, which I borrow from the philosopher Gabriel Marcel, is fundamental: problems are to be solved, true mysteries are not.Personally, I wish I could have learned this lesson more easily—without, perhaps, having to give up my tennis game.But each of us finds his or her own way to mystery.At one time or another, each of us confronts an experience so powerful, bewildering, joyous, or terrifying that all our efforts to see it as a “problem” are futile.Each of us is brought to the cliff’s edge.At such moments, we can either back away in bitterness or confusion, or leap forward into mystery.And what does mystery ask of us?Only that we be in its presence, that we fully, consciously, hand ourselves over.That is all, and that is everything.We can participate in mystery only by letting go of solutions.This letting go is the first lesson of falling, and the hardest.

Handing myself over to “falling into mystery” is pretty challenging but rings true to me.Perhaps these BASE jumpers, in their own way, are practicing handing themselves over to that mystery, and finding that the act of falling can bring them fully alive.In the moment of greatest risk, they discover their greatest satisfaction.

Some of us practice that leaping only in our dreams. Have you ever had a falling dream?One of these dreams would probably wake me up in a sweat.Falling in a dream sometimes is interpreted as an inner struggle with feelings of helplessness and losing control.But for others with a little more dreaming courage, they are able to let go and allow themselves to keep falling.Sometimes the fall transforms into flight, soaring and swooping.Flying dreams are very auspicious.

The balance between holding on and letting go reminds me of Sheri.Sheri loved rock climbing but also struggled with the fear of falling.The sense of danger during rock climbing is part of what makes it exciting, even addictive.But sometimes she found she would get herself into a spot where the anxiety about reaching or jumping to the next rock was so great that her legs would start shaking and her palms would start sweating.These symptoms would escalate her fear into practically a panic attack.She would give up the climb and berate herself for her lack of courage, ready to give up the sport.But the thrill of a good climb would draw her back again.Her awareness of danger, the source of her pleasure, was also her downfall.

The tension between understanding and awareness creates dilemmas without end.The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis expresses that struggle.Adam and Eve are fearless until they have partaken of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.In fact their fearlessness creates their vulnerability.Only after eating the apple, are they aware that they are naked.Like little children, born without shame, they lose their innocence and learn to fear.

The fall from innocence is hard for all of us.That fall can also begin to limit us.I remember enjoying ice-skating as a child about this time of year at the University of Delaware ice rink. I particularly liked to skate backward, lifting my heels to make a quick stop on my toes. Then one day I fell backwards and banged the back of my head on the ice.After that experience, my enthusiasm for skating diminished and I stopped going.I couldn’t get that experience out of my mind.

I know of a woman in her early seventies who has had a fainting spell.She has fainted only a couple of times, in the middle of the night as she got up to go to the bathroom.These two falls have been very disturbing for her as she was always someone in perfect control of her life.Rather than adapt to this new reality, she is choosing to limit her activity and stay home more, closing her world in around her.

Sheri chose another path.Sheri realized that there was no solution to the fear of falling.Without any fear, the climb wouldn’t be stimulating or challenging.She realized she had to learn to work with the fear and take risks not knowing the outcome.She had to learn to manage the fear rather than solve it and embrace its mystery.

I’m aware of this learning to manage risk in my own life.At 46, my physical health has already crested and now I’m on the downward slope of life.I’m getting some osteoarthritis in my ankle and fingers.My hair is graying and lines are settling into my face.My eyes aren’t focusing like they used to.I’m starting to slip down the slope of aging, not knowing when the next fall will happen.My progression of loss has been slower, thankfully, than it was for Simmons, but each little stumble evokes the same emotions.I fully expect many more years of good health, and yet the grief is still there as my youth fades away and middle age settles around my waistline and various parts of my body begin to fall.

Simmons continues:

Think again of falling as a figure of speech.We fall on our faces, we fall for a joke, we fall for someone, we fall in love.In each of these falls, what do we fall away from?We fall from ego, we fall from our carefully constructed identities, our reputations, our precious selves.We fall from ambition, we fall from grasping, we fall, at least temporarily, from reason.And what do we fall into?We fall into humility, into compassion, into emptiness, into oneness with forces larger than ourselves, into oneness with others whom we realize are likewise falling.We fall, at last, into the presence of the sacred, into godliness, into mystery, into our better, diviner natures.

Paradoxically, allowing ourselves to fall into mystery can open up a new dimension of living.Our physical wounds can actually begin healing parts of our spirit.Our suffering can open us to the suffering of others and deepen our connections.There is no mistake in associating wisdom with the fruit of aging.Perhaps wisdom isn’t something we earn or attain, but rather something we fall into, are surprised into, while making other plans.

Simmons concludes:

I would rather, at least for now, find victory in the falling itself, in learning how to live fully, consciously in the presence of mystery.When we learn to fall we learn to accept the vulnerability that is our human endowment, the cost of walking upright upon the earth.

So, I’m riding my bike down those hills fast, not as fast as possible, but at a good clip, sometimes 35 miles an hour, and I’m as alert as I can possibly be.I’m taking risks, looking for victory in falling, knowing I can’t control all the variables.And when I do, I’m happy, terrified, and alive.

Benedictionby Philip Simmons

We are all—all of us—falling.We are all, now, this moment, in the midst of that descent, fallen from heights that may now seem only a dimly remembered dream, falling toward a depth we can only imagine, glimpsed beneath the water’s surface shimmer.And so let us pray that if we are falling from grace, dear God let us also fall with grace, to grace.If we are falling toward pain and weakness, let us also fall toward sweetness and strength.If we are falling toward death, let us also fall toward life.