TITLE: At the End of Your Rope? By 04/12/07 |
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My friend, Sam, is at the end of her rope. I know this because a mutual friend of ours told me so. The literal part of my brain marries with the creative part, and I end up with a picture in my head of my friend dangling precariously at the end of a long rope. Both of her hands are up by her face clutching the rope, and her feet are crisscrossed around the rope down at the very end. Her face is all squinched up with her eyes closed and her teeth clenched shut. Poor Sam, up there at the end of her rope.
Where do we come up with these sayings? And this one in particular? Where did Sam get her rope to begin with? Was she born with it? Did she acquire it somewhere along the way? I believe it is just assumed that we all have one because I am forever hearing that one person or another is at the end of theirs. Now it's Sam’s turn. I wonder why you never hear about where someone is along their rope until they’re at the end. No one told me when Sam was mid-rope. No one worried then. It seems we’re coming to the game a bit late, now.
As I watch Sam, dangling there on her rope, in my mind, I wonder where the other end of her rope is. I assume it is attached to something secure for her to be able to dangle there. I equate the other end with goodness for some reason. I mean, if the end that Sam is on is bad, wouldn't it stand to reason, then, that the other end is good? I am not sure.
The saying has been around so long that someone came up with a pithy antidote to Sam’s present predicament. They would suggest that she should tie a knot in the end of her rope in order not to slide completely off. This person doesn't know my friend. In order for Sam, or anyone else, to tie a knot in the end of a rope they are dangling from they would have to possess unusual acrobatic ability. She would need to be able to turn herself upside down on the rope, wrap her legs around the rope several times to secure her legs, and free up her hands to knot the rope. If this is her only solution she is doomed.
But is tying a knot the only solution? If you manage to get the knot tied, then what? The pithy person suggests you then simply hang on. Uh huh. What, indefinitely? Who was this person, and why do we continue repeating their silly phrase? I mean what would happen if we just let go? You know- of the rope? We might just drop nicely to the ground and say, "Oh. Okay." And go on about our lives, rope free. Or I suppose we could let go, and fall directly into hot molten lava. In which case we would regret letting go of the rope, if only for the briefest of moments, before we became toast.
Why wouldn't we encourage Sam to start climbing back up her rope? Remember elementary school, and the large ropes in the gymnasium? Every year the PE teachers would have everyone try to climb up this massive rope to the ceiling of the gymnasium. There was a bell at the top you could ring to let everyone know you made it to the top. Only a few of my classmates ever made it up to ring the bell. We all clapped and cheered for them, though.
Now I wonder if that was practice for what Sam is going through. Was she a bell ringer in elementary school? Did our teachers know that we would one day be at the end of our rope, and need to know how to get back up? They should have told us! I believe we would have tried harder had we known. Instead, we would climb up about four or five feet and hang there, unable to go up any farther. Like Sam is now.
So I guess if you ever find you are at the end of your rope, unless you are a Cirque du Soleil performer, forget trying to tie a knot in the darned thing. Make like a bell ringer and get climbing! Maybe I better go and check on Sam. I'll cheer her on to climb higher. I don't want to risk her falling into molten lava.
“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:11, NIV)
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