At the age of 62 he heard an ad on television for the San Francisco School of Circus Arts, inviting ordinary folk to come learn the skills and art of the flying trapeze. Believing himself too old for such a thing, Keen nonetheless went one night to observe a class. This was as close as he thought he would come to touching his childhood dream. The teacher, however, didn't let Keen sit it out on the sidelines, instead prodding him to try. He did. He found himself returning the next week. And the one after that. Soon a new passion was born, a passion that eventually led to his putting a practice bar in his living room (which had 16' ceilings), and a full rig in his backyard. It also led to his writing the book Learning to Fly -- trapeze: reflections on fear, trust, and the joy of letting go.
I offered a reflection in February of 2019 to the congregation I serve about some of what I'd learning in my reading of this book. I am sure that it is only the first of many. After all, the metaphors of the circus are deep and rich ... and I'd only read about half of the book at the time I wrote that sermon!
Keen's subtitle is a synopsis of several of the spiritual lessons to be found among those who "fly through with the greatest of ease" -- fear, trust, letting go. Quite literally, being a trapeze artist requires you to learn to let go in spite of a quite reasonable fear of falling if you do. There's only just a few letters difference between flying and falling. You could add failing into that mix, too. We want to fly, but are afraid we'll fail and fall. Sound at all familiar?
One of the things that trapeze has taught Keen is that it's not only important, it's essential for a flyer to work through the fear of falling. Whenever you're trying to learn a new trick, you should first practice missing the trick, so that you can learn how to fall safely. There is, he says,
“a fundamental principle — learn the fall before the trick; prepare for failure. From the moment when a fledgling accomplishes the first free fall, progress in flying and falling go hand in hand. […] the great flyers have always been great fallers.”That might sound somewhat counter intuitive at first. Most of us would probably rather put of letting go until we know there'll be someone or something there to catch us or for us to catch ourselves on. Apparently, though, if you really want to fly you get there by preparing not to be caught, which teaches you that you'l survive the fall. (If, of course, you've learned how to fall safely, which is a skill in itself.)
Does that sound scary? Well, maybe it is. He talks about Isabel Caballero, one of the few women who perform the triple somersault, who has said, "Even after all these years I am afraid all the time. Every time I climb up on the pedestal I look down and think about how high up it is. But," she adds, "I love flying more than I fear it."
How do we get there? How do we get to the place where we can say, honestly, about our own lives, that we love them more than we fear them? That we love Life -- with all of its inherent challenges ad risks -- more than we fear it? I'll give Sam Keen the last word:
"We learn to fly not by becoming fearless, but by the daily practice of courage.”
Pax tecum,
RevWik
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| This is an image from Birds of Prey, Vol 1, #8. For those who don't follow the escapades of the Batman and the rest of the "Bat Family," this is Dick Grayson (the original Robin and, now Nightwing who was part of his family's circus flying troupe as a child), and Barbara Gordon (the orignal Batgirl, who was paralyze when the Joker shot her in the spine, and who became Oracle, the eyes, ears, and computer wizardry of heroes throughout the DC universe). When Barbara was complaining about feeling so "earthbound" after losing the use of her legs (and her life as Battgirl), Dick brought her to the circus to experience the joy of flying once more. |
