Twenty inches isn’t all that high. It’s less than two feet. My daughter was 20 and ½ inches long when she was born. But when you are staring at a black box twenty inches high and you’re supposed to jump on top of it and land on your feet and you’ve never done anything like that in your entire life, it feels impossible.

It feels like if you were actually able to get on top of the box, you would immediately fall backwards, crack your head, become a spectacle.

I will never forget the triumph I felt when I jumped onto the 20 inch box at my gym for the first time. I was so afraid of falling that I asked another woman to stand behind me. I didn’t need her. My arms went back behind me, my legs bent strong, and I was up! I stood tall on that box and felt like I could do anything in the world.

That feeling came rushing back the other when I watched another woman, new to the gym, conquer the box. She had been eyeing it during the whole class, doing her jumps on a lower step. I could tell she wanted to try the higher box but was afraid to do so, just as I had been. At the end of class, she practiced on the step one more time and then, determined, stood in front of the box. She took a deep breath. Her arms went back, her legs bent strong and she was up! She threw her arms up in delight, let out a yell, and we all cheered.

We knew the feeling: fears faced, doubt banished, power coursing through a body we are learning to trust, to delight in, to love.

Twenty inches is higher than we think.

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Rev. Megan Lloyd Joiner

Senior Minister at Unitarian Society of New Haven, Connecticut

Rev. Megan Lloyd Joiner the senior minister at the Unitarian Society of New Haven (USNH) and brings to her ministry a passion for worship and theology that is relevant to people’s lives. A life-long Unitarian Universalist raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Megan received her B.A. in Religious Studies at Wesleyan University in 2001. From 2003-2005, she worked in the Unitarian Universalist Association’s Washington Office for Advocacy and was privileged to connect with Unitarian Universalist congregations doing social justice at the local, state and national levels. Megan graduated from Union Theological Seminary in New York City in 2009 and subsequently worked as a pediatric chaplain at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Megan returned to Connecticut in 2011 where she completed her internship at The Universalist Church in West Hartford. She was ordained by that congregation in collaboration with her home congregation, First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati, in 2012. Megan served the The Universalist Church as Associate Minister from 2012-2013 and then the Shoreline Unitarian Universalist Society in Madison, CT as consulting minister shortly after the birth of her daughter. She returns each summer to Spring Green, Wisconsin, home of her Unitarian ancestors where she preaches in the historic Unity Chapel. Megan was called to USNH in 2015 and lives in New Haven with her husband, Anthony Clark, her two-year old daughter, Arden and two cats.

Latest posts by Rev. Megan Lloyd Joiner (see all)

• The Realm of Possibility - November 1, 2020
• Thus Do We Covenant… - March 1, 2017
• Be Still - November 3, 2014