day 169: Trapeze Artists

It's the summer and now is when the circus comes to town. At our summer home in Rhode Island the Big Apple Circus always starts their season in Ninigret Park in July for a week before they go on tour. It's a spectacle and I love to see the performers do their work. The high-wire acts and the trapeze artists are some of my favorites. The precision and trust that happens between the people is amazing. I always wondered if it was a marketing stunt that they are usually families, or is it because to get that level of trust and working together, it takes a sense of family. Maybe it is a little of both. Imagine that if all work took this level of trust how important it would be that we were able to reach to each other knowing exactly when and where the other person was going to be at the time and where we needed to be. Some dangerous jobs do need this level of trust and precision but for most of us our jobs allow us to be sloppy with our hand-offs and our level of trust is low with not very high expectations of each other. Maybe we should start thinking about this differently and begin working towards being more like the trapeze artists. In Ecclesiastes 4:10 we read; "If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble." This sure rings true for the trapeze artist but it should ring true for us as well. Like the person on the receiving end of the swinging trapeze bar there is a sense of timing and expectation that the bar, and the person, who is going to need to be grabbed is coming and will be in the right place at the right time. It all comes together and works perfectly. We should be applying this lesson to our own lives and work. There are others who would like to depend on us to be at the right place at the right time for them so they can depend on a smooth and predictable hand-off and a tight grip from us. It may something as simple as following up on a request or a phone call or email. When we follow through and make the hand-off happen we are reaching out and helping. And beyond that we are creating that swinging back motion of the trapeze bar so that we will never fall alone either. Today, think about this metaphor and the words in Ecclesiastes. Is there someone who is depending on you to be there to catch them so they don't fall? Are you supposed to be reaching out to someone else to help? Let's never let someone fall alone because we weren't there for them.

Reference: Ecclesiastes 4:10 (New Living Testament)