“When it feels scary to jump, that is exactly when you jump. Otherwise you end up staying in the same place your entire life.” —

Oscar Isaacs as Abel Morales in A Most Violent Year

While walking through the park the other day I watched a group of little girls running along the top for five picnic tables which had been arranged in a long straight row. The elevation of the tables provided added excitement and the girls giggled with the sheer delight as they dashed from one end to the other and back again. As I got a little closer, I noticed that there were two little girls standing at the end of the last table in line. A girl in a pink and white sundress stood on the ground while her friend remained at the edge looking down at the ground. “Jump. Jump,” the one in pink implored, but her friend hesitated. I wanted to stop and ask the one considering the jump what she was thinking. What was she weighing in her little mind? Was it the distance from table to grass? Was it the fear of a hard landing? Was it peer pressure that caused her to consider jumping in the first place? I walked on while the hesitation and the cajoling continued, but I’ve thought a lot about those barefoot girls in their summer dresses.

About fifteen years ago my sister, Kelly, invited me to join a group of women on a white water rafting trip down the Gauley River in West Virginia. The morning of the promised adventure the eight of us, in various sizes, colors, ages, and levels of fitness and only loosely connected by a shared relationship to my sister, climbed into the raft together.

The first test came when our guide, young Captain Mike, who at that time was still under the impression that he was in control of a boatload of middle aged women, informed us that we were approaching Jump Rock. “This is Jump-Rock,” he said in his most authoritative voice. “It’s not Climb-Up-There-and-Decide-Rock. Once you’re out of the raft there’s only one way back in. You have to jump.”

I’m usually pretty timid about such things and I hate heights, but as I gazed up at the cliff face I suspected that the tenor of our entire adventure hinged on this decision. I was going to climb up there and jump. When the others who were hesitating saw me…old, chubby, and out of shape…preparing to make the trek up rocky path to the top they too gathered their courage and we all jumped off that rock.

She took a leap of faith and grew her wings on the way down. 

David Brinkley

I suppose you could call my jump…holding my nose, my eyes squeezed shut, and yelling all the way down…a minor leap of faith. I’d watched others do it before me. I was confident in what lay ahead. I knew that eventually I’d hit the icy water, sink momentarily beneath the surface and then pop up gasping for air and, I imagined, feeling exalted. It took a fair amount of courage on my part to move from tera firma, but in doing so I was given the wings of self-confidence, fearlessness, and moxie. From that point on we were bonded; we were invincible! That day was one of my peak life experiences. I sometimes wonder, would that have been the case if I’d remained in the raft and merely watched?

Often of late, I find myself standing at the edge of what feels solid and comfortable contemplating whether to jump or not. The loss of my partner has also meant I’ve lost a part of who I am or at least who I was when I was part of a team. I am trying to discover, create, or at least identify who am becoming. That journey involves risk and taking chances. Sometimes the metaphorical jump is just a matter of going to the movies by myself, walking into a restaurant and asking for a table for one, or checking into a hotel and only needing a single key. Do I jump or do I stay in the boat?

On a trip to Scotland in 2014, Cousin Doug, coaxed and teased me into taking a short hike up a. steeper than I’d like, hillside to see one of Rob Roy’s hideouts. I wasn’t planning to hike that day and was ill prepared, without proper footwear, or my hiking poles. Then it began to drizzle. it was Scotland after all. I was soon wet, tired and the trail had turned to mud. Oh, the evils of peer pressure!

I finally convinced Doug that I was in beyond my skill level and needed to turn back. Taking a different…supposedly shorter…return route we came to a very small stream…a trickle really…that Doug hopped over effortlessly.

“Jump,” he said. “You can do it.”

“No, I can’t,” I replied.

“Sure you can. Just jump.”

“Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach of the stars.”

Ben Stein

Moments later I lifted my head from the mud where I had landed face first, to see my sweet cousin convulsed with laughter.

Life presents us all with choices. Do we stay with what we know or do we take a risk and discover something new? Do we jump and learn to fly or are we content to hang onto the branch for a while and enjoy the way it sways gently in the breeze ?

“The sparrows jumped before they knew how to fly, and they learned to fly only because they had jumped” 

Lauren Oliver, Liesl and Po

The real leap of faith is learning to trust ourselves to know when it’s right to step off and when we need to stand firm. It’s perfectly fine to wait on the edge, contemplate, and step back for a while or to decide not to jump at all. No one is ever forced to climb Jump Rock and we can always just wade through the stream or we simply slide off end of the picnic table. Then again…flying is pretty cool and if you get a face-full of mud it makes a good story.

Jump or not…the choice is ours.