Skydiving, Velcro, and Me

2011 

It was one of those, “Oh no you Di'n't!” kinda moments. My friend had just jumped out of an airplane at 14,000 feet. You can imagine the flip-flip my heart went into just reading the comment. She had the nerve to post a picture to prove she completed the audacious feet. My heart is in over-drive right now just writing the words.

I thought we were friends. She knows what fraidy cat I am. The only thing she could have done to come closer to giving me a heart attack was to post pictures of a snake. My friends know. They sign a sort of prenuptial-friendship agreement. If you wanna remain friends, it's easy: no snakes!

Just ask the ones that have violated the 'no snakes' clause. They'll tell you breaking up is hard to do when the break up is over violation of that clause. Now it looks like I'mma have to add a 'no sky diving' clause.

Courtesy A. Hughes

You know me. I'm a push over. It doesn't take me long to kiss and make up. So it was that when my friend and I met after this adventure of hers, we shared a long hug and laugh. Truth is, I held on longer because I was glad she survived her brush with insanity. We talked non-stop trying to make up for lost time.

We talked about pushing ourselves beyond our fraidy cat limits and how change follows like dominoes. I tried to cover up the ugly truth about how I really felt. If I had to admit it, I was just a teeny-tiny, eensy-weensy bit jealous. Jealous of her backbone. I thought it was a big fat hairy deal to get on an airplane. She got on and jumped out at 14,000 feet. Show off.

My unremarkable flight was the gift of change that keeps on giving. I can only imagine that her escapade is going to reap much larger rewards over a much longer period of time. So, I asked, “How do you think you've changed after taking on such a daunting experience?”

Her face went somber. The staccato of conversation and laughter softened to a hushed and pensive quiet. I watched emotions flit across her face as she organized her thoughts and took stock of them: 

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

You know, I am different. I have recognized sin in my life. It's something that has haunted me all my life. Somehow, I see it now like I never have before. I have always been the kind of person who listens to the opinions of others and takes stock of myself in light of what they say. If I heard anything negative, I immediately identified with it and adopted it as my own failing.

It was as if I had Velcro strips all over me. I wore those and waited for any negative label to come zinging toward me. Every time I heard one float through the air, I'd grab it and plaster it on even if it didn't apply to me. Somehow, I'd find a way to make it apply and accept the guilt and blame for that fault, failing, or sin.

As she spoke, her hands floated through the air as if grasping words floating by. She'd pluck the invisible word out of the air and pat it down to stick it tight to a waiting Velcro strip. Maybe you had to be there, but the moment was riveting: 

Courtesy My Free Falling Friend

Pure and simply, accepting all that guilt, all that blame was sinfulness on my part. Taking all that on was a twisted kind of selfishness that made me the center of my own negative universe. I was refusing to accept the righteousness of Christ and live in peace with myself. I feel free now. Free to live as the new creature I am: redeemed, forgiven, made new. I am free from the selfishness that enslaved me.

We sat back and looked at one another basking in the moment. I said, “If you realize this much so soon, can you imagine where you'll be a year from now?” Then, it was time to rush on to the next things on our never ending 'to do' lists. We hugged again as we savored the victories of life and the sweetness of new found freedoms in Christ.

In the days since, I have rejoiced over the opportunity to share her journey and her victory. I think about the unseen Velcro strips that adorn my existence and the unwanted labels they bear. The burden is heavy. I am weary from the labor. I reach down and grab one as I think of how it has haunted my days. I hear the distinct sound of Velcro tearing loose. Enough is enough. In my mind's eye, I see myself at the door of the plane. I jump. I am in a freefall to freedom.
                                           
Who knows? Maybe the next time she jumps, she won't be alone. ;-)

2 Corinthians 5:17 (Amplified Bible)Therefore, if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!

Courtesy B. Creasy - 2010

Matthew 11:28-30 (The Message Bible) Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.

'Wrasslin' With Reality

1960

The little old man sat with his hands on his knees and so far forward on the chair that it seemed a hair trigger would spring at any moment and propel him up and forward. His eyes were glued to the action on the screen. A smile engulfed his whole face wrinkling the brow above impossibly widened eyes. He rocked back and forth just a bit adding to the sense that he might shoot up off the sofa with shocking speed.

The action on the screen unfolded. Back then, we called it 'wrasslin'' so as not to confuse it with the collegiate sport my cousin participated in – wrestling. Not like you could confuse the 2. As the combatants waged their battle from round to round, the little old man would almost squeal, “Git him...git him!” and then look over at us with a reassuring nod to say, “It's real, you know, it's real.”

Paul Harvey would love to step in here and tell you the 'rest of the story'. It is enough to leave you stupefied at the power of the human mind and heart when it comes to the reality we embrace. You see, that wrestling cousin had grown into a career in law enforcement. In that capacity, he often worked security in a civic arena where 'wrasslin' matches were staged.

Courtesy A. Hughes

To his pure delight, my cousin was able to take the little old man, our beloved Pappaw, to see wrasslin' heroes in the flesh. They went early enough to allow a behind the scenes look at the world of Saturday afternoon TV wrasslin'. My cousin mistakenly thought he could disabuse our grandfather of his firmly held conviction that all the action was genuine and spontaneous. I laugh out loud now at the memory of my cousin's optimistic determination.

The angry dynamos of the ring where gentle giants as they embraced their aged fan with humor and dignity. They showed him some of their best moves along with how they'd set the move up during the actual match. One of the stars even told Pappaw that, when the time came, he'd look over and give Pappaw a secret signal. With that signal, Pappaw would know they were about to pull off a stunt designed to launch the crowd into a frenzy. The kind of frenzy that would launch an old man off his chair and into a delighted dance of glee.

Wanna know a secret? Even tho' Pappaw had been schooled in the ways of wrasslin' events staged for TV ratings, he remained firm in his conviction that 'wrasslin' was real' till the day he died. He believed in spite of the fact that the the concrete reality of those staged events had been explained to and demonstrated for him. He believed even tho' he had been included in the inside jokes while sitting at ringside.

Sometimes we kids would gently tease, “Awww...Pappaw. You know it's not real. They told you so and showed you how they do it.” He'd shake his head negatively and reassure us again that not a single moment of the unfolding events was staged. He believed....because he wanted to. In those moments before the television screen, he could suspend reality and enter into an alternate reality of his own choosing.

I've thought about my Pappaw and his love of wrasslin' a lot this week. How often do we choose to ignore the obvious and reach instead for a make believe reality. We do so because it will make life more colorful, more satisfying, or easier to digest. The end, we tell ourselves, justifies the means.

Courtesy A. Squires

There is a glance in the break room at work that holds just a little too long. The promised reality seems so much more restful and fulfilling than the sink full of dishes and feverish kids waiting at the end of the day.

The overpriced handbags beckon from the voluminous sale catalogs this time of year. We accept the lie that we can pay with plastic now and erase the damage early next year. We suspend the truth we know for the truth we'd rather believe.

Three more cookies won't hurt if we spend 10 minutes more on the treadmill. OUCH. One more glimpse at that compelling image we hide in the dark to view after everyone else is asleep won't hurt because it will be the last time we look. Our kids won't hurt over the foolish mistakes we make because we will be happier people if we succumb to our selfish desires for one more pill, one more drink, one more hit.

Courtesy Tracy M. Green

At the end of the day, we look at the world around us and wonder: where do all the broken, lonely people come from? And as we look away because it hurts too much, we whisper to ourselves, “Wrasslin' is real...it is...it's real....”

Proverbs 20:17 (Amplified Bible)

Food gained by deceit is sweet to a man, but afterward his mouth will be filled with gravel.

Courtesy B. Creasy

Proverbs 23:6-8 (English Standard Version)

Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies, for he is like one who is inwardly calculating. “Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten, and waste your pleasant words.