Who Do You Admire?

 Dare-devil Diver Drops 24 Miles 

and Breaks the Sound Barrier

 Last Sunday, “Fearless Felix” Baumgartner jumped 24 miles from the stratosphere at an estimated 833mph, that’s Mach 1.24, which is faster than the speed of sound. He offered two thoughts:

1.      We look awfully small from up there,

2.       All I wanted to do was to come back alive.  

What exactly did he contribute to science?  So much for the pride of human spirits to risk their lives for meaningless records—except to be first and say you did it

Then I remembered poet Denise Levertov--who hardly sports the face of the competitor out to shatter records.  Compare these faces and ask yourself--who has really plumbed the depths of the human spirit?  She captured this enduring truth in her poem "Suspended:"  

I had grasped God's garment in the void
But my hand slipped
On the rich silk of it.
The 'everlasting arms' my sister loved to remember
Must have upheld my leaden weight
From falling, even so,
For though I claw at empty air and feel
Nothing, no embrace,
I have not plummeted 

 Oh, that last line—“I have not plummeted.” 

And I thought of those courageous people who have to dare the unknown of their own medical fate—going into tests and surgeries without end—and feeling upheld, no matter what the diagnosis.  Or those people whose lives are challenged where they work, day after day, just not knowing if the pink slip will come…and when it does, what do I hear but—something just held me up.  And the ones who lose a loved one tragically, a bolt out of the blue steals them away—and they go into complete freefall only to find new legs and keep on walking.  

I don’t think we need to dare ourselves to climb to great heights and free-fall to break the sound barrier.  Life hands us enough of that already.  In those moments, I know those who have discovered that Life embraces, upholds, and ultimately trustworthy no matter how small they look to us.