It’s hard to close a door and never look back.  It seems to  be harder when door closes on a painful experience.  I now have more empathy for Lot’s wife, turning into a pillar of salt for looking back on the destructive city.  No matter how horrible the city was it was still her home, what she knew.  I may never turn into a pillar of salt, but if I keep looking back I’ll crumble too.

I sat on the stool with my hands loosely holding on and my legs swinging freely.  My childlike trust kept me from worrying about how high I was off the ground.  This trust was at first enforced when I looked around and saw the others also sitting on stools of similar height.  I knew it was a risk to sit so high, but I never asked to sit up there, I kind of floated up before I realized any better.  Maybe I did ask for it.  After all, I chose to participate.  See, I’m the type of person who dreams about everything.  I keep watching for something good to pass on by and when it comes I grab on.  Taking risks always involves the chance of success or (sometimes and) failure.  This time I had held on tight thinking I knew the risk involved.

 

It took some time, but eventually the reality of danger was evident.  The others became more comfortable with me and I with them.  Despite the differences we learned to understand each other.  Not deeply like a confidant, but there was a shared feeling of uneasyness.   The look in their eyes communicated the stool was not as steady as it appeared.  Their glances warned me they were never sure how long it would stand.  Sure enough, the others began to fall off their stools.  Sometimes they would be picked right back up, and other times they would lie in pain for awhile before they were rescued.  Some were knocked down more often than others.  The ones who learned not to question always stayed on their stools the longest.

 

The danger wasn’t the stools themselves.  It was the leader.  The leader had lifted each one of us up and taught us something unique.  Through this teaching we were instilled with hope.  Hope of a better life for ourselves and others.  We all felt our lives could impact the world with the skill or knowledge we had been given.  The leader built us up to trust them more than anyone in the world.  Once our trust was gained, we were knocked down so far and so hard, there was no one left to trust.  The danger was a feeling of slavery.  I describe it as a feeling, because we didn’t have physical shackles, and we weren’t whipped.  It was emotional slavery enforced by fear and obligation.  The fear of being all alone was worse than staying on that stool where there was still the possibility of others falling with you. 

 

I was one of the last to be knocked off the stool.  It was hard to admit I was really falling.  I had watched the others go through the same process many times before I fell, but I still held onto the possibility it would never happen to me.  At first I tried to ask the leader for help to climb back up the stool, but each time the leader helped me move upward I would be pushed back twice as far.  The others knew better than to help me, and I knew better than to ask for their help.  The outsiders would never believe my testimony held against the leader’s smiling face and outstanding acheivement.  So I chose to walk away.  It was a luxury I could afford far more easily than any of the others.  I didn’t have a family to provide for, or a career to risk.  For me there would always be more sturdy stools accompanied by a better leader. 

3 weddings this summer.  Two long awaited and one unexpected.  I will probably cry at two of them (one being the unexpected).  It gets me every time, seeing two people I know well who love each other commit their lives to working it out together.  If you know me this may sound strange, but I have also left every wedding thankful it was not me tying the knot.  I’m more than okay with the reality that I have at least a few years before thats me.  After all it’s a long road to walk, and running just wears you out.