‘If I see three oranges I have to juggle. And if I see two towers, I have to walk‘. These are the words of the crazy frenchman, Philippe Petit, after walking a tightrope strung between the two towers of the world trade centre. It was in answer to a police inquisition, since he had simply climbed out of one of the windows, shot a cross-bow to the other tower, and walked between them. They wanted to know what made him do something so crazy, thinking that perhaps he did it for publicity or for a sum of money from a sadist. Or that he was mad. They eventually sent him for psychic evaluation, but he turned out completely sane.

Commenting on this, Henri Nouwen* asks howcome we feel the need to give specific answers to some of life’s deepest questions. Most of the time, our answers sound pretty ridiculous anyway:

‘Why do you love her?’

‘Why did you become a Pastor?’

‘Why do you pray?’

‘Why do you believe in God?’

How do you answer those questions?

‘Because she’s beautiful?’

‘Because I hated my other job?’

‘Because my Pastor told me I must?’

‘Because I’m scared of hell?’

Perhaps there’s no better answer than: ‘If I see three oranges I have to juggle. And if I see two towers, I have to walk‘. Would you ask a child why they decided to play with the ball? How would they answer that question?

Maybe the best answer to some of life’s deepest questions is actually a non-answer:

‘Because I saw her and I loved her’

‘Because I must’

‘Because He’s there’

‘Ditto’

Sometimes the most meaningful answer is not really an answer at all, in that it may not satisfy the skeptic, but somehow it serves to explain the action anyway. Philippe’s answer satisfied the policeman, and they let him go without charging him, as long as he performed a tightrope walk as a charity event for children.

And so he shot another tightrope between two towers, and continued to walk.

* Henri J.M Nouwen: The Genesee Diary, pg 109-111.

One of the toughest experiences a person can go through is rejection. It is also unfortunately, one of our most common experiences.

Children are rejected by their parents. Teens rejected by their peers. Lovers rejected by their partners (Would-be lovers by their hoped-to-be partners). Job hunters rejected by their dream bosses. Parents rejected by their children. The elderly rejected by society.

Rejection is a mini-death, and we’ll die ten thousand deaths before we’re buried*

Life then, is a systematic journey of dealing with rejection, among other things. I would have thought that by age 30 I’d be able to handle it, but it’s not that easy. The problem is that the emotion attached to rejection is so intense that it typically just knocks us out for a while, without much chance for us to get a handle on things.

The other night I was having a conversation with someone about career paths, and we were both discussing how rejection in a chosen career had led to the pursuit of something completely different, which actually turned out to be perfect for both of us. For instance when I decided to give up engineering to pursue full-time ministry, I was at first rejected. I still remember getting the letter, opening it with much anticipation, believing it was the ticket to a brand new life. Instead it was rejection. That was tough. But through the rejection I ended up where I am now, which is a place far better than I could have ever imagined.

I think thats how rejection works, mostly. It simply serves to redirect our lives. That seems simplistic when you have a broken heart, but would you want to be with someone who couldn’t love you in the first place? It simply is a closed door. Not on life, not on opportunities, not on fulfillment, but on something that would never have given you those things anyway.

I also think that the pain of rejection is more often than not, less that the pain that would have been inflicted through the wrong choices anyway. Of course that’s all hypothetical, and we’ll never know for sure if the job we were rejected from would have been better than the current. But looking back on my 30 years I’d have to say that rejection has so far, steered me on a pretty decent course through my life. And so I’m thankful for it. For now.

The reality is that no rejection is ever a complete rejection of your value as a human being. It is simply a redirection of something comparatively small, something tied only to the tiny slice of present time and space. In the perspective of infinity and sovereignty, rejection is just steering. Steering towards something redemptive.

Mark 8:31: “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again.”

Rejection is not the end. It is the beginning of something new.

—–

*Eugene Peterson – The Word made Flesh

Today is a pretty miserable day. Clouds all over, something wet falling from the sky. It’s the kind of weather people hope to stay indoors to, watching a movie or reading, or something warm and fuzzy like that. It’s kind of tempting I agree, but I remember an occasion when braving the weather led to an unforgettable moment.

Every January we try go diving somewhere, and usually we end up at Sodwana Bay. One year my brother and I were supposed to go to Mozambique but we only remembered that we needed passports once we had reached the border, so we turned around and ended up at Sodwana. It’s one of my favorite places in the world, because people go the beach to have fun, not flex their muscles and tan. I once counted 30 boats on the water, along with hundreds of 4×4′s lined up on the beach, people kite surfing, kayaking, snorkeling, fishing and playing in the ocean. People need to play, even when they’re 40 years old.

Our last diving trip at Sodwana was much of the same: Diving eating sleeping eating playing eating playing sleeping, in that order. But it also had some epic moments thrown in. One of them was when my brother proposed to his girlfriend at the bottom of the ocean, under a huge coral arch. She said yes. The other was an unforgettable encounter with a certain Chondrichthyes.

It started badly, with a day like today: Clouds and rain. The joke is always that you’re getting wet anyway, so who cares about the rain right? Wrong. That day we had picked a dive which included a 7 mile boat ride, which means you spend more than 1.5 hrs bumping around and hanging on for dear life, fighting nausea, enduring rain that stings like needles. We might as well have been on a Humvee bouncing around the Arabian desert taking bullets in the chest.

When you eventually get underwater, the clouds spoil the visibility and you only get to see the fins of the guy in front of you, not to mention the currents that buffet you against the coral, like a punching bag swinging on a rope. We saw nothing on that dive, at least nothing worth remembering. After shivering it out for 45min we eventually ran out of air and retreated back to the boat.

It’s usually about this time I feel sea-sick, and getting back onto a boat rocking in the rain was no comfort. Once moving the nausea started to subside and the trip became about surviving the bullet storm. Pretty miserable. That is, until the skipper suddenly cut the engines and peered into the water. He turned to us and said two words: “Whale Shark”. Those two words encapsulate diving Mecca, much like ‘Vatican’ and ‘Sistine chapel’ do to the Catholics.

My brother and I just gaped at each other, and dived into the gear box to get the snorkels and fins on. Without even waiting for a signal from the skipper we belly flopped into the water and started chasing him. They swim slowly, not more than 5km/hr, so we caught up quickly. I dived under and headed toward him, taking with me all the oxygen I could squeeze into my lungs.

It was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. He moved so elegantly, especially for the largest living fish species. It’s not just the size that mesmerizes you, but the beautiful patterns painted on the skin. I became a fish myself under there, forgetting I needed air, just staring and swimming around him. As my vision started to blur and I realised I needed air again, I came up for a gulp, and headed back down, lungs exploding. It didn’t matter. It was too beautiful.

Eventually the lack of oxygen to my muscles meant he got away, and I returned to the boat. There’s not much to be said after an experience like that. Just get back on the cold boat, in the choppy ocean, under the rainy clouds.

I keep thinking what I would have missed out on if I let the weather get to me. I’d ride through a hailstorm to have that experience again.

Now I’m thinking, imagine if I had stayed in bed today, on this miserable morning, and missed the glorious events that surfaced. It may not have been a whale shark, but it sure beat lying on a couch.

It got me thinking that on another level, when times are tough and it’s raining bullets on our lives, we mentally stay in bed, and miss the glory of what could be going on right in front of us.

Or beneath us, beneath the cold feet in the rocking boat. The Whale Shark.

Don’t miss it.

Doorways are the guardians of three-dimensional space. I have a door in my room, and I sleep with it closed, because sleep is a sacred space and I don’t want anyone peering in on it. I don’t lock that door though, in case I’m having a really bad dream and need to get out quickly. Or in case I put my back out in my sleep and no-one can get in to help me. That actually happened once. The point is I get to decide who gets in and out of my space by the installation of a door.

Doorways are also connectors of space. I have a door between my bathroom and the rest of the house because what you do in there is totally different from say, what you do in the kitchen, and thus the space needs to be separate, but still accessible. It would be helluva awkward otherwise.

Doorways are guardians and connectors of space, but mostly they are keepers-of-secrets. I know that doesn’t sound very pragmatic, but behind every closed door is a secret. It can be something trivial, like the mystery of whether there is actually food behind the door of my fridge, or something momentous, like a government deciding whether to bomb another country or not.

Closed doors are alive with endless possibilities. When I was little there was a cupboard in my dad’s workshop that was always locked, and I always imagined it to be a tunnel to a secret research facility where aliens were held. Who’s to say it wasn’t? The reality that it could be a national secret or a bunch of old tools existed side by side, kinda like Schrodingers cat. I wanted to open that door, but I never did. I guess I couldn’t risk the discovery that it just contained some rusty nails.

That’s the problem with doors. It’s human nature to want to know exactly what is on the other side, but we’re always too scared to really find out. Often we’d rather settle with imagining it being one thing or another, rather than know for sure.

And so we don’t venture through those doors. We don’t ask the girl out, because it’s easier to imagine she would have said yes than actually have her say no. We don’t take the job because it’s easier to have imagined it being all wrong than take the risk of finding out that it was right. Some people would rather imagine no Supreme creative Being than leap through the door of faith and find out that He does. And that the doorway connecting our space with eternal space is not guarded but wide open.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Rev 3:20

Human beings are born to fight. Literally, we exit the womb fighting. I haven’t heard of a baby sliding out the womb with a smile on it’s face, arms open wide, embracing its new world. I cant remember that day myself, since it was quite a while ago, but I’m pretty sure the kid wants to get back in there, badly, considering the fuss they’re making.

We soon grow up and fight against eating lumpy pudding, fight to be first to play the gameboy and fight the boy over the girl. Fast forward a few years and fighting gets professionalised and endorsed in the scrabble for attention we call sport. We then fight job applicants, fight to get to the top of the corporate ladder, and fight the traffic that comes with that highest rung.

We’re born and bred fighters, battling our way through every day. I guess it’s not something we can avoid entirely, but I do think we have to pick our battles, or more specifically, pick our enemy.

I watched Million Dollar Baby the other day, and what really struck me about the movie was it’s message on fighting. If you haven’t seen the film, it’s about a woman named Maggie who wants to be a boxer, and the coach who reluctantly agrees to make a fighter out of her.

She’s pretty good, and sets about knocking other woman out all over the place. Of course the movie has to have an antagonist, in this case an ex-prostitute German slugger who fights dirty. They made sure we knew who the baddie was.

So they fight, and if this were a Disney movie the good girl would have won, despite the dirty tactics of her opponent. But she didn’t, she broke her neck. Having been molded by the feel-good naivete of Hollywood I expected her to make a comeback and smash this monster in the face and be queen of the world. That would have been nice. But she never recovers, and she spends the rest of the movie paralysed.

What fascinated me so much is how the movie never once indulged our desire for the antagonist to be punished. I so badly wanted the baddie to get beaten in some way, by somebody. But she doesn’t get a feature, in fact we don’t ever see the butch German woman again. Instead the movie becomes about Maggie’s new battle, living as a lonely, disabled, ex-boxer. It’s like the antagonist has switched from a person to something else, something less physical.

It’s almost like the movie is saying that the real battles in life are never about people. That maybe they’re against hatred, unforgiveness, anger, loneliness, hopelessness, jealousy and other evils like that. Maybe the fights that count, the ones we should be entering, have nothing to do with people in the first place.

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” Eph 6:12

The wait is going to be a little bit longer. I could say that it’s because I’m building the suspense, but it’s really because I’m in beautiful Cape Town for the week, and I don’t have the draft on this little Blackberry.

There are ways and means, of course, but there are also many distractions, like some of the best coffee shops in the country. And beaches.

So you’ll have to wait till next week to find out how it all ends. I think you’ll enjoy it.

By the way if you’re needing a blog to distract you from work this week try my good friend Craig’s at www.motionpicturetheology.blogspot.com. It’s good stuff..