The Flying Trapeze and the Fine Art of Freedom (Excerpt)
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I’ve attended the circus exactly three times in my life—twice as a child and once as an adult. The first two were the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus (under the big-top, the “Greatest Show on Earth”) and the third was Cirque de Soleil, held in an auditorium theater.
I was enchanted by that first circus, from the festively adorned horses and elephants leading the procession with circus performers riding their backs—not seated, but standing!—to the brave lion tamers who got into cages with big cats, to the jugglers and clowns and acrobats walking the tight-rope.
What most captivated me, though, was the flying trapeze. Perhaps my fascination was rooted in vivid childhood memories of the backyard swing-set—those times when I would pump the swing as high as it would go, and then, at just the right moment, propel my body off the seat, let go of the chains, and for a moment or two, fly free.
At the circus, I was captivated by the trapeze artists high above the crowd, gracefully letting go of their swinging bar, flying through the air, being caught, and then letting go again. The sense of freedom was exhilarating.
Author Henri Nouwen once had the opportunity to travel with the Flying Rodleighs, a troupe of trapeze artists. Their conversation inevitably turned to flying and how they could possibly do what they did. In the end, says Nouwen, it comes down to this: “A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”
Nouwen, a Catholic priest, uses this as a metaphor for what happens to us when we die. We are the flyers and the catcher is God. For most Unitarian Universalists, however, the focus of the spiritual journey is on this life, realizing that heaven and hell can be conditions we create right here on earth. For me, the lessons from the flying trapeze pertain not to death, but to life—lessons in letting go, catching, and being caught.
I think something in us all craves the feeling of freedom. It is inherent in us. Yet, we allow ourselves to be deluded into thinking that security is synonymous with freedom. Truth is, the work of freedom comes with risk—the risk of letting go.
Letting go is religious work. Think for a minute of all the things that keep us imprisoned, all those things that get in the way of realizing the beloved community we dream of—racism, classism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia. The religious work is in finding these tendencies within ourselves and then letting them go. But letting go of deeply ingrained beliefs and fears is no small thing. Holding on to something feels better than having nothing to hold on to.
Much as we crave freedom, we also crave security. Letting go of beliefs, even those that don’t serve us, can feel like a free fall, a plunge into the unknown, unless we know that we will be caught, that there is a safety net.
We need trust if we are to let go of all that keeps us divided from one another. Building trust is religious work, learning that when we let go, someone will be there to catch us. The role of the religious community is catching people as they fall. People come to us all the time, having let go of beliefs that no longer serve them. They come to Unitarian Universalism for the first time with outstretched arms, trusting that we are going to be here to catch them.
The fine art of freedom is knowing when to hold on and when to let go, knowing what to hold on to and what to let go of. Now, more than ever, we are being called to practice values that we cherish, values of peace-seeking, justice-making, love—the value of extending compassion. We need to continue to let go of everything that gets in the way of freedom.
Now more than ever we need to be that community of catchers, to be a safe place to land for people ready to let go of culturally imposed values of unbridled greed and consumerism and the inevitable exploitation of people and the planet that come with an unquenched thirst for wealth and power.
Now, more than ever, we need to be that community. To do anything else is to put freedom at risk. The work ahead of us is religious work, trusting what our forebears taught—that there is a source of life from which we can never be ultimately severed. We belong to life and life belongs to us and the nature of this life is love.
In a world becoming increasingly intolerant, we can choose to be different. Within our community we can do the religious work of building trust. Within our community we can begin to create the world as we wish it to be. It is ours. We can create it to be what we want—a place of peace, a place of freedom.
If we are to fly free, we must learn to let go, and trust that when we do, we will be caught. And we must become the catchers.
- The Flying Trapeze and the Fine Art of Freedom (Excerpt) - March 1, 2013
