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. Henri Nouwen
I don’t know about you, but I am afraid of heights. I am also afraid of flying. And these fears – rational or irrational – have been with me since I was a child. The fear of falling or crashing in an airplane have haunted my nightmares over the years.
Even though I have these fears, I have been fascinated by a story that I read recently. It is a story that helped me confront my fears through the lens of faith. The story is from the book “Flying Falling Catching: An unlikely story of finding freedom” by Henri Nouwen and Carolyn Whitney-Brown. Henri Nouwen was a Dutch-born Catholic priest, professor, psychologist, and prolific writer. A master communicator, Nouwen wrote and spoke with great openness and vulnerability about faith, spiritual formation, prayer, and social justice. When Nouwen passed away suddenly in 1996 at the age of 64, he left behind several unfinished manuscripts, including one about his relationship with a family of trapeze artists called the Flying Rodleighs.
The Henri Nouwen Society, which protects his legacy, commissioned Carolyn Whitney-Brown to take his unpublished manuscript and journal entries about the Flying Rodleighs and weave them together into an amazing story. In this book, we get a glimpse into the final season of Nouwen’s life and how he struggled with his own doubts and fears.
Nouwen became fascinated with this troupe of 5 European trapeze artists who he first met in 1991. He spent a lot of time with them before his death in 1996. Nouwen was amazed at their phenomenal skills and their ability to trust one another while in the air. He watched them perform and rehearse their act – perhaps hundreds of times – and he realized that their circus act was an analogy for our life in Christ. Climbing up a flimsy rope ladder up to a platform high in the sky, only then to jump into the unknown takes a huge leap of faith. If you have ever seen such a trapeze act, you are more likely to pay more attention to the person who is flying, but Nouwen discovered through his relationship with the Rodleighs that it is the catcher who has the most important job. It is the catcher who has to be at the exact place at the right time to ensure that the flyer does not fall. If the catcher is off by a second – if he misses his mark – the act will fail. Nouwen came to understand that God is our catcher. He is the One who we have to trust to catch us when we take a leap of faith. He will catch us when we are full of doubt and fear as the disciples were after the resurrection.
In our broken world, there is much doubt and fear. This is also true in the Church. Congregations are struggling with declining memberships, unsustainable budgets, older buildings, and the future is uncertain. What is the mission of the Church and how do we fulfill that mission?
As we wrestle with our doubts and fears, we need to remember that God will be there – stretching out his arms to catch us. None of us are perfect and we all make mistakes. As the late Rev. Dr. Timothy Keller once said, the church is not a museum for pristine saints, but a hospital ward for broken sinners. And when we fall, when we miss the mark, we do not fall into the abyss of fear and despair, but are caught in the redeeming grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. As Nouwen reflects in this book, our lives in Christ are full of thrilling successes and crushing failures, but in the midst of this great trapeze act called life, there is forgiveness and grace. There is hope and love. There is strength to take a leap of faith as we work together to build the kingdom of God.
Blessings, Rev. Emma