June 28th 2009 "When I fall"

Mostly I'm putting this in because I mentioned in the post about Ken that I ran a service at my church. This was that day.
I got to read Rumi and Kurt Vonnegut, and make an entire room sing Let it be. I played my drums as an interlude, and then gave a humanist sermon about me falling down lots, and what I learned from it. Then afterwards people had snickerdoodles and strawberries, and lots of people talked to me. It was kind of fun. I figured I'd post what I said here.
I want to thank you all for your patience in taking the time to listen to me, one of the things I wanted to say about falling has to do with being willing to risk trying something beyond one’s typical bounds, and that’s what today is for me.
When I fall may seem like an odd topic for a summer services, but when I was a little girl MANY of my memories of summer start off with me falling. My family would go camping during the summer at this place called Wells and when we would get there my dad and mom would be unhitching the trailer, and setting up things where if you are a kid the best thing for you to do is to get out of the way. SO I would take off for the water. It was some sort of moving body of water somewhere between crick, river and reservoir. What I know is past the dam there was a place where the water moved at a gentle pace and the tops of the rocks were visible so one could see little landmarks dotting the water from one side to the other. On the edges the rocks were close together. SO hopping from one rock to the next came easily and one could stay dry. I would wander up and down the one side hopping from this rock to that to see what I could see. But then eventually I would try and venture out further to the places where the rocks came further apart, and see how the world looked from there. The jumps came a little harder. There were many triumphant leaps that started my summer, but inevitably between the slipperiness of the rocks, and my little kid self overestimating what I could do, and daring myself to go further, I would try and make one that I just couldn’t. Sometimes my balance would slip and my toes or heels would slide in, others I would come crashing down and land on my butt half on the rock and half in the water.
I learned to wear shorts the first day of camping, because ….. just because I fell on my butt and got wet didn’t mean that camp was ready yet for me to be able to go up and change, and wet cotton shorts are much more comfortable than any jeans or long pants that drag. My mother learned to remind me to change into my oldest pair of sneakers before we left the house, because they would become camp sneakers. They would spend at least the rest of the summer in and out of the water, peddling bikes and drying by the fire so that they felt much different than ordinary sneakers, and always had a little something stuck to the outside or squishing on the inside.
In that way the fact that I was going to fall became was an accepted reality of my childhood. I know for a fact that falling is the reality of most childhoods. Some more than others.
I have a number of friends who gave birth last year, and their children are coming up on their first birthday. Their lives are pretty much all about falling. I stayed over in a house with an 8 month old a couple of weeks and she would crawl over to me use her hands and my pants leg to pull herself up to standing and then fall back down on her diaper. She would crawl around for a bit explore other things and then repeat this process.
Falling is an accepted reality for children. If babies tried to avoid it they wouldn’t learn to walk. If kids worried about it they wouldn’t play on playgrounds. Yet somewhere along the time line of our lives quite often falling stops being an accepted reality that you adjust to and plan for and starts being a bad thing.
This sermon actually came from a yoga class I was in. Something happens when I go to a yoga class in which most forms of yoga make my body feel either confused or dumb. My balance in yoga class is never the greatest. I was doing a pose and falling out of it. I wasn’t the only one falling out of it and the teacher was offering me the opportunity to go do it against the wall and I said “No I like to fall” and I laughed and she laughed and said something to the class about doing things in ways that work for you.
So I went home thinking about how I like to fall, and made this list of reasons why I like to fall. Originally my sermon was going to be about why I like to fall, but then as life happens I went on a trip in which MANY things went wrong, and I was pretty grumpy about them, and I also managed to hurt my back at that time. And pretty much my mindset was “This hurts and it’s bad and I don’t like it.” So when I thought about the reasons I like to fall I realized some of them only applied to smaller falls and others I had to really look hard to remember what I appreciated about when I fall.
I got a list of ten here and half are times when I like falling best and half are things I had to look a little harder to be able to appreciate.
1. I like falling best when I get to laugh at myself in the process. - It takes the sting out of it, and it’s nice to be able to laugh. That was why I read the piece from Vonnegut. It’s natural to laugh when people fall. That’s why America’s funniest home videos is still around, but when we can laugh at our own falls, it makes things SO much easier.
2. I like falling best when it teaches other people that it’s not so bad. - Everybody falls sometimes, and maybe my bad yoga or falls will convince somebody to keep trying when they fall. I always love that idea.
3. I like falling best when it’s a surprise sort of but not really. - Both my mom and I could predict that I was going fall during childhood summers, but I never quite knew when. I like best the risks one is conscious of, and takes on willingly. It’s so much nicer when we choose to challenge ourselves.
4.I like falling best when it can lead to new perspectives. – This is the gold that Rumi was talking about finding. If we whole heartedly chase after something we desire and we fall along the way, the place we fall into provides us with perspective and wisdom that is so valuable that it is sometimes worth more than the thing we were originally chasing. Because that chase clears off our hearts, and that fall allows us time to see what our clear heart looks like and feel it’s pulse.
5. I like falling best when I can roll with it – I took Aikido, a form of marital arts for a few years, and the first thing they taught me is how to fall. This basically involves spread out all that energy so it doesn’t hurt. You don’t try to stand against it. You don’t drop your weight and give up. What you do is you let a number of parts of your self hit the floor in succession and move the energy of the fall back and then forward again so no one piece of you take the whole hit. Even when I don’t like falling I try to think about how I could roll with things a little better the next time I get literally or metaphorically knocked on my butt. The I think about how I can roll back up in the best way.
I think learning to roll is a nice transition between when I like falling and when I don’t always because it’s always my hope that the times when I don’t like falling can become either times where it’s not so bad or times when I do like it if I can figure out how to roll with it better or how not to take the hit so hard. It doesn’t always work, but I figure it’s worth a shot.
6. I like falling even when I don’t because it means I dared to push a little farther. It’s something to be proud of. If we didn’t try it out things beyond or current reach or comfort zone life would get pretty boring.
7. I like falling even when I don’t because it allows me a moment when I don’t have to try so hard. – Before I fall I’m usually determined and trying really hard, or sometimes I’m so focused on something that I’m not paying attention to other things. But once I hit down after falling I give myself a moment before doing anything. Usually a short moment, but once you fall everyone understands you taking that break. And you can breathe there.
8. I like falling even when I don’t because it reminds me to be humble. – It’s the universe’s way of reminding me that I’m just a human like everybody else. I’m not always good with this, but I know if I can accept this lesson the next one is easier.
9. I like falling even when I don’t because it allows me the opportunity to experience grace. – It seems to me a common habit when we fall is to look for the people who are going to see us badly and look to confirm our being hurt. But if I am able to be humble, I remember to look for those who would extend kindness even if it is not coming from where I expected it, or wanted it to. I try to remember to look for kindness even if it is not coming in the ways I like and know best. Sometimes it feels like the hardest thing ever. But when I can see grace brought forth through myself or another person it kind of makes the whole suffering piece not so bad.
Once while I was by myself attending a 2-day educational conference in Connecticut, I sprained my ankle at the hotel room. The drive to the hospital with a sprained ankle was pretty lonely and scary, but the next day at the conference I was amazed at how many people took care of me and helped me out. That was a very clear example for me of grace in a fall.
10. I like falling even when I don’t because, it makes me remember that I have a space in the universe and that when I am in that space I am connected to everything else in this great big universe. – When I was writing this I was thinking of a song lyric about someone who wants to be caught every time she falls. I think we all want that, but that would be a very a big thing to ask or expect from any one person. The universe on the other hand has never failed to catch me. I may not like what I have to learn on the way. I may fight it, hate it, and be angry or hurt or both. But even when I feel miserable, even when I can’t see grace in that moment, even when I feel like people have failed me, the universe is always there in it’s infinite variety and possibility and eventually when I get out of my own way that catches me every time.