I fell today. Hard.
There was nothing graceful or elegant about it. It was a clown fall, a Charlie Chaplain, legs in the air, panic on the face, Oh-God-I’m-Gonna-Die fall. I stepped on the powder covered frozen puddle on our back walk and for a split second I thought I was flying – Brian Boitano on ice – and then I was on my back in a bruising thump staring at the gray clouds and telephone wires overhead.
Not a great way to begin the day.
I wanted to laugh. I knew it was funny. I pictured our neighbor behind the curtains debating laughter too, wondering whether he should call 911 or guffaw like a maniac. It hurt too much to laugh.
After checking to see that nothing was broken I dusted myself off and went to the office wondering how I had made it all winter in one of the nation’s coldest cities without falling, and then on a week when temperatures were reaching past 50 degrees, I finally managed to slip on the ice.
“Never let your guard down.” I thought cynically to myself. Not the most spiritually mature response to falling or failing. As I’ve sat here today pondering my misfortune and nursing my bruises, I have circled back again and again to the reality that if there is any learning here it is that I am inescapably and undeniably human. I am mortal. I fall. It hurts.
The season of Lent is riddled with this truth – we are dust, we are mortal, we are often weak and broken and we need. And this truth is coupled with another – we can lean on and trust in the goodness of God when we are in any kind of want or need. God is quick to pick us up when we fall. God chuckles with us in our mistakes, embraces us in our hurts, and forgives and restores us when we fail.
