Author:
Unknown student in the late 70’s.
Sometimes
I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on
to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments in my life, I’m
hurling 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 at a certain steady rate, 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 a while, as I’m
merrily (or not-so-merrily) swinging along, I look out 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 this present, well known bar to move to the next one.
Each
time it 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 afraid that I will miss, that I will be
crushed on unseen rocks in the bottomless chasm between the bars. But I do it
anyway. Perhaps this is the essence of what the mystics call the faith
experience. No guarantees, no net, no insurance policy, but you do it anyway
because somehow, to keep hanging on to that old bar is no longer on the list of
alternatives. 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 yet here.” It’s called transition. I have come to believe that
is the only place that real change occurs. I mean real change, not the
pseudo-change that only lasts until the next time my old buttons get punched.
I have
noticed, that in our culture, this transition zone is looked upon as a
“no-thing” 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! I have a sneaking suspicion that the transition zone
is the only real thing, and the bars are illusions we dream up to avoid the
void, where the real change, the real growth occurs for us. Whether or not my hunch
is true, it remains that the transition zones in our lives are incredibly rich
places. They should be honored, even savored. Yes, 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 of 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. Hurling through the void, we just may learn how to fly.
“They
shall perish, but thou shalt endure: yea, all of them shall wax old like a
garment; as a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed:”
- Psalm 102:26
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