Dear friends,
I’m a sucker for great picture books. I just read a new one to use in teaching the concept of line in art to David, and it struck me how the story relates to my own at the climax of the narrative. The book is called “Mirette on the High Wire" by Emily Arnold McCully, and it’s about a young girl in France who helps her widowed mother run a boarding house. Lots of actors, mimes and entertainers of all varieties lodge at their place, and one day a stranger comes to stay. (Good lord, I feel like I’m back in my Reading Rainbow days, writing a book review!) Anyway, the stranger is a high wire walker, and when Mirette spies him high wiring at the back of the inn, she gets the bug and begins to practice. At the end of the story, we find out that the high wire guy(Bellini) has become afraid, and because of this no longer takes the risk anymore…until a set of circumstances send him back on the wire. He freezes up there…but then Mirette climbs onto the rope toward him, and both of them together "think only of the wire, and of crossing to the end.” She gets him to the other side to the wild cheers of the onlookers, and to my eyes full of tears. (Great artwork too!)
This is kind of a picture of my life. I want to take life by the horns and live boldly. But I get afraid, or more often in my case, lose my focus. More than anything I want to follow hard after the Great One, and love people without strings attached. I want to live simply, defying the relentless call of a world gone mad with materialism, celebrity worship and technology overload. But I waver. I freeze. And then I see the One and Only walking toward me in this crazy balancing act in the form of His people, and I get the gumption to try again. Take another step. Keep walking to the end of the line…
Mirette fell off the high wire many, many times while she was practicing to become adept. The book of James says “we all stumble in many ways”. It’s not the falling that’s a problem, it’s letting the hindrances and failures get the best of us and keep us off the wire. We all need our friends to help us get up when, for whatever reason, we lose our balance, or our courage, or our focus. I couldn’t ever properly thank all the folks in my life, since I was a little girl, who have walked across the wire to meet me half way and get me to my destination. As for the last 10 months, well, I could write a book…(I think I’ll do just that!)
I don’t know what keeps you from getting up high to your place of perspective and daring, but I’m cheering you on with my prayers. If you have fallen down, get up! And if you’re getting a little bit good at it, go find someone who needs your encouragement. It’ll make your day!
Your friend on the pilgrim road,
Loriann
Sunday, September 5, 2010
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1 comment:
thanks for these encouraging words! we drove by the eastham superette twice yesterday, on our way to Marconi beach, and we thought of you.. we had a beautiful day on the cape, and we also can rejoice in all the beauty of God's creation.. -Jim Ault
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