Go ahead, jump

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“Live your life on tip-toe,” the Rev. Don Stewart once preached at a conference staff meeting.

It sounds flip until you try it. Balance on the tip of your toes and your body automatically begins to anticipate. By reflex, you open up to a sense of adventure, that something just might be about to happen.

Preaching on one’s tip-toes can give a sermon a new pitch. Traveling on tip-toe makes you hurry up and slow down all at the same time.

At a recent Baltimore-Washington Conference staff meeting at the episcopal residence, while Bishop Schol cooked everyone lunch, I asked some of the staff to “jump” as I snapped their pictures.  They let go of their inhibitions as their feet left the ground. It was like living on one’s tip-toes in the extreme. There was no room for care – just a shard of a moment that felt like life wasn’t business as usual.

Jump. You’ll feel it.

The staff surprised me. People’s personalities were reflected in their jumps. Some took a running start and leapt. Others composed their jumps to be artistic; everyone raised their arms. It was praise. There was joy. There were even grass stains.

I love that the people were not afraid to jump, that they didn’t let propriety and party manners inhibit them. The conference staff jumped – with joy and bold certainty – the same way they do their ministries.

 

 

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