I read this week that the towering Sears Building in Chicago has now unveiled The Ledge - a four-foot glass balcony on the 103rd floor. The opportunity to feel the thrill of walking on air. Rather the illusion of walking on air.
Sometimes I wonder if I like illusions more than reality. Illusions of security and control. Of significance and love. Sometimes I’m even willing to trick myself into believing the illusion because it feels right. (although I doubt anything feels “right” about standing on that balcony!) As I (God, really) continue(s) to strip away all illusions of familiarity and comfort from my life, I find myself asking alot of questions. Questions about why we do what we do. And questions about how we get where we want to go and likewise how we ended up where we are. About how success is defined and who gets to decide what is normal.
We all want answers, don’t we? Concrete solutions and beliefs that we can hang our hat on. Stake our lives on. Truth. But this too, can be so illusive. Or perhaps it is not that the truth is hard to find, but rather that we are not adequately prepared to handle the truth that is actually true.
Today, my life is shaped by components that at times feel foreign and uncomfortable. Some days I feel a bit overwhelmed by the unarguable truth that I have absolutely no control over most of the variables. What to have for breakfast, yes. Whether to turn left or right at this light, yes. But yesterday’s checklists have blown away and all my neat little boxes with bows are unwrapped and empty…
I believe there is a beautiful place for the boxes. The wonderful blessing of a security that can be wrapped and bow-tied with Pottery Barn quilts and hardwood floors and patio furniture and all of the things that we Americans define as happiness. Let me be the first to light the fireworks that celebrate our freedom to be happy by all definitions.
And as the Lord gives, so He can take away.
This year, as we lit up the skies with brilliant colors that popped and wowed, I found myself marveling at the greatness of His grand planetarium. His control over planetary systems and interaction with diverse living habitats. The wonders of nature and the vastness of the world that have become my big backyard. And I question whether or not this can become my new normal. A string of days where the illusions are all stripped away and all I hear is Him beckoning me to step further out onto the ledge.