Trapeze Moments

Photo Credit: Joshua Koller

It feels like we are currently being invited into one, massive trapeze moment.

We have been swinging on a trapeze for quite some time now. We’ve been holding on, swaying back and forth, possibly doing some tricks and flips and inversions along the way.

At this moment, we are being asked to let go of our old trapeze in order to free up our grip to catch the next one, which is swinging just a few feet away.

For these moments in between, we are holding onto nothing. We are swinging through thin air, with nothing but a bit of momentum and the trust that the second trapeze will indeed be waiting for us, that we will be able to catch it, and that our grip will be strong enough to hold us.

While we know that the second trapeze exists, we don’t yet know what it will feel like over there. We don’t know the exact feel of the wooden bar or the natural pattern of the way it swings. We can only know these things once we get over there, and getting over there requires us to let go of being over here.

Making the leap from trapeze #1 to trapeze #2 is scary, and requires an incredible amount of trust.

We are, it seems, at a national trapeze moment. In many ways, it seems that we might be at a global trapeze moment. And many of us are at individual trapeze moments - looking over there at the second trapeze, wondering what might be next for our careers, businesses, and families - and wondering if, when we jump, we'll have a firm trapeze to grab onto.

Kahlil Gibran said,

"Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof."

It feels as though in many ways, we are being asked to have this type of faith - that the second trapeze does exist, that we will catch it, and that individually, and collectively, we will swing forward together. That we will be okay. And, that once we get over there, that we might be stronger than we are today.