I have been struggling this month to find the words to write about hope. Each week I would hope for the words or inspiration about hope to come, but then I would fail and I had to be okay with that. It was when I found this video about the tightrope walker that I began to understand that this past month for me has been like the process of being a tightrope walker. Every time I sit down to blog, it is about climbing up to the tightrope. The climb up can seem secure, at least in contrast to being on the tightrope, but even in the climb, one can fall. Acknowledging that one can fall and climbing anyway is part of the practice of hope. You acknowledge what can happen and you move forward in faith on the hope that it won’t.
Then when we reach the top of the ladder, having not fallen, we stand and make ourselves vulnerable to the world knowing that we take every step in complete faith. We can fall at any point in our journey from point A to B, but we do it anyway. To those observing us they see a beauty in how we maintain our balance and composure as we move across the tightropes in our life, thinking they could never do what we do. Perhaps at that moment in time, they could not as they do not believe that they can. Yet as we traverse our own personal tightropes, we take each step with hope we will remain on the tightrope the entire journey.
Even if we fall, which we might, there is always the safety net of faith, which catches us and enables us to climb the ladder again, knowing this may be the time we make it across without falling.
Each of us in our own ways is a tightrope walker. Your tightrope is whatever it is for you at this point and time in your journey. In my personal life, it is my physical walking, as I have no feeling in my right leg. Every step I take I am mindful that I might fall, but I take the steps anyway. Thus far, in the last five years I have not fallen once while walking and for that I am grateful and it gives me the hope for the next time and the time after that. One day, however, I might fall and that too is okay. As long as I can, I will continue to walk in faith, hoping that each step lands on solid ground in front of me and I maintain my balance.
As the tightrope walker has their bar or uses their arms to assist them in maintaining their balance, I use my walker. It makes taking those walks of faith easier. It keeps me balanced and not walking faster then I need to. I just take a few steps at a time.
It reminds me that it is not about how fast I get across the tightrope, but that I do, continuing to put one foot in front of the next, knowing that eventually I will get to the other side.
Embracing the inner tightrope walker in one’s self enables one to deepen their relationship with their Higher Power. So as we enter this new year, embrace your inner tightrope walker, climb your ladder, and walk one step at a time across the tightrope in your life.