Trust Your Feet

• Lenten Fridays continue March 15th for Soup and Song for North Quabbin Citizen’s Advocacy.
• Look for our next Lenten Home Practices to post here soon.
• Easter Sunrise at 6:30am on the Steps. Regular Easter Services at 9am. Easter Egg Hunt at 9:15am.
• Join the Neighbors Group for a Maple Waffle Breakfast on March 23rd from 9:30 to 11:30am.

Watch the Recording HERE.

We’re on the “other side” of the Journey through Lent.  We’ve had more days behind us of the Wild than are before us.  Not many, but enough to put us on the “other side”.  It’s all downhill from here. Or so we’re told.  

One of the best metaphors for the Wilderness, this place of life, death, and everything in between, is an obstacle race course.  There are many other metaphors and comparisons, but this is a good one.  We’re talking hard, grown up, train hard, never-know-what-to-expect obstacle type courses–the one where you go: why would anyone do that!?  Where we’re asked to carry heavy sand bags or logs or rocks up the side of a mountain.  We’re asked to get over an eight foot wall–who can actually reach the top of an eight foot wall?!  We’re asked to climb a military style rope to ring a bell or use Tarzan ropes to get across a pond.  

Obstacles where if we fall, it’s going to really hurt or be really uncomfortable.  A place where all the Scaries come out.  Heights. Dark. Death. Spiders. Monsters. Water. Pain. Failure.  Embarrassment. Cold. Thirst. Hunger.  

It’s very much like life.  We’re going to get hurt.  We’re going to fall.  We’re definitely going to get wet.  We’re going to be really cold or unbearably hot and it seems like there’s never a comfortable in between.  We never know what obstacle is coming up next, so we can never be fully prepared.  We also don’t know what’s going to happen between the obstacles.  Sometimes it’s a long, hard slog uphill. Sometimes it’s a walk darting poison ivy and angry wasps.  Sometimes the course is the river or a pond.  Sometimes, it’s not the obstacles that are the problem, but the cold or hunger or thirst  and the uncomfortable and dull in between.  

It’s hard to prepare for an obstacle course.  Not many people have obstacles in their back yards. A lot of the training is doing the best we can with what we have at hand and hope that gets us through the course.  Even if we do know what we might expect, we don’t know when.  Sure, monkey bars might be our “easy”, but is it still easy after we’ve climbed a rope, carried a forty pound sandbag half a mile, and dragged ourselves over a cargo net?  

The hardest part?  Showing up.  Getting into the Wilderness with those devils and beasts.  Even with the angels…there are some incredible angels out there.  What’s the first rule of Obstacle Course Racing?  Make it to the start line.  To choose to go into the Wilderness and unexpected and scary…and keep on going.  That’s half (or more) of the battle…putting ourselves out there where there are obstacles and challenges. Choosing to leave ourselves open to pain and loss.  

We’re at the halfway point of Lent.  It’s where we do start to know what to expect in the Wilderness.  The surprises are less surprising.  Not easy, but we begin to know what’s behind us and we start to know what’s likely to come.  We know who’s with us.  Yes, the one who seem to plow on through with no regard for anyone else.  Yes, the one who doesn’t actually do all their penalty push ups.  But also, and more often, the one who encourages us when we’re ready to cry. The one who offers us a bandaid for that wound or a Tylenol for that pain.  The one who pushes us when we’re ready to give up.  The ones who help us when we’re really, really afraid.  

The halfway is also when the unfair, the angry, and the frustration comes in.  We’re so tired and exhausted. We’re already “done”.  It’s often when the hardest obstacles are thrown at us one right after another and another and another, until we’re not sure we can possible do another one. It’s when the eight foot wall is put at the top of a mile long death march up a ski mountain.  It’s when the mile marker says we’ve only gone four miles, when we were sure it was five.  The halfway is when we’re hungry and tired and thirsty and sore and…”done”.  It’s when it “should” be easier…but it never is.  

Halfway.  It’s when we’re so far, we can’t quit, but we’re not sure we can make it the rest of the way.  It’s when we need to find that inner strength and perseverance.  It’s when we’re halfway through an obstacle and we realize that the really scary is on the other side of it and we’re already committed.  The thing we didn’t see coming and catches up completely off guard and paralyzes us.  It’s when we need to find that inner strength and perseverance.

There’s no going around the obstacles that life gives us.  There’s no avoiding the slog and the uncomfortable of what’s in between the obstacles of life.  We just have to move through.  Whether we want to or not, because living on the top of an obstacle for the rest of our life is not an option.  Especially when it’s the hardest and the scariest and the thing we’ve never done before and we’re not sure we’re able to.  If we stop, we just stay stuck and scared…longer than we than we need to.   And, it true, we can get help, we can be supported, and nudged, and cheered on…but no one can do our obstacles for us.  

We’re halfway through the Wilderness, but we still have a long way to go.  Celebrate the halfway mark.  Celebrate the “not giving up”.  Celebrate…how far we’ve come and how much we’ve learned.  Keep holding tight, but not too tight.  Keep remembering that sometimes we have to swing back before we can swing forward.  Keep the lesson that sometimes we have to let go long before it feels safe.  Sometimes it takes determination and willpower.  Sometimes it takes time and patience.  

And always, always, always, trust your feet.  We can’t manage an obstacle or see what’s coming if we’re always looking at our feet. Look up.  

Trust your feet is really the story of the footprints in the sand.  Where, in the beginning there are two sets of footprints as God walks with us. Then, through our most challenging moments, there is only one set.  The story goes that when the person asks God why God deserted them during the hardest parts, God says: that’s when I was carrying you.  

Perhaps, God walks with us to teach us the ways through the obstacles, how to trust our feet, and how to enjoy the moments and blessings of the in between (even when there’s mud and rain and poison ivy; even when we get stung). 

Perhaps, yes, for the hardest obstacles of life God does hold us and carry us through. 

Perhaps also, sometimes, God has taught us to trust our feet and is standing there on the sidelines watching, cheering us on, knowing…we got this, even if we’re not so sure. 

God knows that as we get stronger and braver, we can be there for someone else who feels weak and scared.  And every time we cheer someone else on, every time we help someone through an obstacle, we’re emulating God’s Love and Grace and Presence in this world.  God is on the sidelines…smiling.  

And perhaps…that is the Beauty of the Wilderness Journey.